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inknopewetrust · 4 years ago

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A Little Chaos

Summary: A thief finds herself at the center of the kidnapping of two girls and has the attention one very attractive detective.

Pairing: Detective Loki x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 3.8k

Warnings: Criminal activity, flirting, sexual references, brief choking, probably 16+ based on content but no explicit smut. A mention of pedophilia but nowhere near in detail.

A/N: I don't think I've ever written something like this and can I just say that I really loved it!? So, I really hope you all do too! Requests are currently CLOSED but I hope to open them soon again and with new characters to add to my list. Check out my Masterlist for all other works. Thanks so much for requesting this @mrs-blooooom! I just loved the idea so much and thanks for being so kind about all the delays!

One - pick the lock

Two - lift up the screen and frame as quietly as possible but make absolutely no rough work of it.

Three - slip on the shoe covers and assess the gloves before entering through the window.

Four - get to work.

That was always the structure, no questions asked. Though, you noticed the news beginning to trace your patterns. You had made a hit in another neighborhood two weeks ago and because the news began reporting the patters, you were sure the police weren’t far behind.

And perhaps on that particular Thanksgiving, you shouldn’t have done another–or picked that house, rather.

Detective David Loki had a million different things running through his mind on a daily basis. When a case such as the Dover-Birch one stuck itself in the middle of an already pending investigation of burglaries in the Conyer’s area, he had a hunch of who he would investigate first. But he couldn’t get to that immediately because Keller Dover convinced him and his superiors that the RV belonging to Alex Jones was the first and only way to go.

But even after interrogating the man who had a child-like innocence to him, David Loki was convinced there was something more to the story. There had to have been a connection to who burglarized the Dover’s that same night and where the girls could be... he was certain, but then he wasn’t because he wasn’t sure you were the kind of person who would kidnap two innocent girls.

On a particularly slow Tuesday, no new leads had come in and the investigation had stalled because Alex Jones had now gone missing without a trace. Although he was doing everything he could, Loki was far from finding a solution and decided to take the initiative into his own hands and dive into the file he had been working on for nearly five months–the one into you and your less-than-stellar activities. The post-it note sticking out of the side of the manilla folder contained an address to an apartment in the center of town. He plucked it out, tucked it into his pocket and walked straight out of the station.

You weren’t worried about being considered a suspect in the kidnapping of two girls. You had no connection to the Dover’s, Birches’, or the Jones’, as well as no connection to the scene of the crime. You were always careful, and the Dover’s had no security cameras. So, when your comm buzzed in the middle of the day, you weren’t expecting it to be the police.

“Hello?”

“Ms. L/n? This is Detective Loki with the Conyer’s Police Department. I have a few questions I would like to ask you.” The voice was cackled with the circuited communication buzzer but you heard the man loud and clear. You also knew exactly who that was.

Detective David Loki was an infamous creature of Conyers. One day he just seemed to sprout out of nowhere and into the public sphere, but you had known him for a while. You were never friends, and you were sure until now he didn’t even know your name, but he was the star pupil of the town. And the spotlight he was in, he absolutely hated it. Every time his picture appeared in the paper or when he had to speak on the television relayed that message and you laughed in pity. The poor man just wanted to do his job and that was one part he didn’t sign up for.

“Can I ask what this is regarding?”

“The investigation into Joy Birch and Anna Dover. I just have a few questions I’d like to ask you if you would step-”

“I’ll buzz you up.” You pressed the button and unlocked the door, opening it just enough for you to rest on the frame with one arm on the door and the other on your hip.

Another thing you knew about Detective David Loki was that he was one of the most attractive people you had ever laid eyes on. The man was a walking dream but unfortunately, on the other side of the law which was far from promising when it came to your vivid imagination.

“How nice of you to not barge into my home, Detective.” You called out to him as he appeared on the steps landing just down the hall from your door. Loki gave no smile but shoved an orange post-it into his jacket as he shoved his hands into his pockets.

“This surely won’t take long.”

With a nod you moved away from the door, shutting it closed behind you. With the sudden and unexpected presence of this man who was a fine line between formal detective and loose cop, there was an urge to be exactly the opposite of what he wanted you to be. He had been trailing you for just enough time to learn patterns in your life, the people you associate with, the fact that you had a degree and a decent job. You had an apartment to call your own, a car that wasn’t stolen and yet you continued to break into people's homes and steal curious objects for what? Consignment sales? He wasn’t sure. But you weren’t going to give him the answers he was looking for. You enjoyed the life you built for yourself...even if you had to steal and sell things to arrive at ends meet to pay for everything in your life.

“So... what can I do for you?”

“Can you recall where and what you were going on the night of Thursday, November 28th?”

“Thanksgiving?” You asked with a raised brow and he nodded. Loki pulled out no notebook to take notes, rather he watched every movement. He was trying to identify guilt, but you were a casual sleuth. It wasn’t a game he was used to because all of his suspects eventually gave in.

“I got up around 8:30, maybe 9 and ate some breakfast, um I-” You took a seat on the arm of your couch, running a hand over your mouth trying to “remember” what exactly you were doing a few days ago.

“-took a shower and then got started on my dish to pass at my parents dinner. I made sweet potatoes and stuffing-or dressing... I don’t know what you call it.” Loki was far from amused that you were making this appear less than serious. He couldn’t let himself believe that you were stupid enough to believe he wasn’t there on behalf of the story that captured the attention of the entire nation, so he didn’t believe a word you said.

“When that was done I got ready, did my makeup, and headed out to my parents where my sister and her family were meeting us to have dinner. Then I left their house around 7-ish and came home.”

“After dinner you went straight home?”

“Yes.”

You looked at him with an unfazed gaze which he met but didn’t buy. It was a game. A cat and mouse game that he wasn’t willing to bite into but it was too late, you already had him on a string. Loki would be lying if he didn’t find you attractive, even in the slightest. You were a beautiful woman, and it was because of how you looked that you’ve never been caught. You always covered every inch of your body and you looked unassuming. You had a perfectly pristine house, looked like someone who didn’t need to steal to live but then again, most of the time, all the people who do steal never look like they would because that is what people are taught not to look for.

“I made some phone calls late last week and someone in your family spilled that you weren’t there. In fact, you haven’t been to a family holiday since you graduated college nearly ten years ago. Bad relationship?”

“I can assure you–whoever you talked to, they weren’t there. I was there. I can tell you what I wore, what I ate, what was on the T.V. and what color shoe my nephew was wearing that day.”

“Those could just be good guesses?” Loki let his eyes wander around the small living space. He looked at the picture frames, the vases, the bins, the T.V. stand, everything that could have screamed “out of place” to him but nothing did.

“You didn’t happen to pass two little girls on your drive home, did you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Two girls. I’m sure you’ve seen their picture on the news.” Loki pointed to the T.V. at first but then dug into his pocket and pulled out a single picture of two girls photographed on a playground. They were smiling widely and happily at the person behind the camera. You had never seen the girls so you shook your head no and crossed your arms.

“No. I’ve never seen them before. Am I supposed to?”

“I don’t know, are you?”

“What are you implying, detective?”

“Do you know the house you broke into on Thursday, November 28th was the home of Anna Dover. Anna and her friend Joy went missing that same night after returning to the Dover residence to find a whistle. You were inside the home at the time we believe the girls went missing. So, tell me–do you know where the girls are?” Loki was zoned in accusation. The man was unwavering in his tone or his assumption and you would say it was scary if you didn’t find it attractive. Why, God WHY, did the detective working on this case have to be everything you looked for in a man? It would be so much easier if he were old and wrinkled but he was far far from it.

“Detective, if I would have known you would come into my home and accuse me of kidnapping two innocent girls, I wouldn’t have answered the ring.”

“Where are the two girls? Do you know where they are?”

“No. I told you I didn’t take the girls.”

“But you were in the house? Did you see the girls?”

“I didn’t say that either.”

“What if I told you that you were a sloppy thief?”

“Excuse me?” You furrowed your brows in confusion. You were certain that you were not. There was never a time where you left as much as a trace of hair in a location that you hit.

“The bin.” Loki walked over to the T.V. stand that had three white bins tucked into slots. The bins were generally filled with junk except for one thing that the Dover’s told him went missing yesterday afternoon. A medium size blue decorative pot with yellow flowers on its sides. It was meant for shallow flowers as a table center piece that was gifted to Keller and Grace on their wedding day. Grace was distraught over it and it was sitting the left-most bin under the television. Loki pulled open the drawer and carefully took out the pot and you looked at it with a shrug.

“Where did you get this?”

“My mother.”

“I thought I told you that they told me you haven’t spoken to them in a decade?”

“Well I obviously spoke to them before that.”

“I am going to ask you again and I want an honest answer. Where did you get this pot?”

What were you supposed to do? The man literally cracked the code. If only you hadn’t chosen that house. Oh! How much easier your life would be.

“I plead the fifth.” Oh, fuck.

Loki set the pot carefully down and pulled a pair of handcuffs from his belt. It would have been hot if you weren’t terrified of what came next. Then you made an ill-timed joke.

“You’re not pulling those out for another reason are you?” You didn’t even laugh yourself because he simply ignored it and motioned for you to stand and turn around.

“I am going to take you to the station and we will talk more there. Stand up, turn around, and give me your hands.”

“I already told you I don’t know where the girls are.” Ignored again but the feeling of him pushing your shoulder with his hand and taking your wrist was something you wished you would stop replaying in your mind.

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything-”

The Conyer’s Police Station was wimpy compared to other cities. It was a small, single story brick building with three holding rooms and one interrogation room. You weren’t sure how long you sat in the holding cell, but it was nighttime by the time you were taken out of the room by another officer and into a brightly lit, slightly yellowed room with a mirrored window and a small desk with two chairs. There was a pencil and a pad of paper at the center of it but you were sure if it was going to be Detective Loki interrogating you, he wouldn’t need it.

The officer uncuffed you with no words spoken and pointed at the chair facing the window. You rubbed your wrists from the friction the metal left before taking a seat and staring into the glass where your reflection met your own. You had nothing to do with the two missing girls so you had nothing to give them, or rather, nothing to give Loki to further his investigation.

The man of the hour waltzed into the room a mere five minutes after you were sat down. He had a half-drank cup of coffee in one hand and a small grouping of papers in the other. Loki sat down, settling himself before looking up at you and beginning the interrogation.

“Please state your name, age, and address.”

You recited the information as told.

“How many homes a year do you burglarize?" Loki opened a file that was tucked under some papers with a series of pictures printed on a piece of computer paper. It was amalgamation of missing objects from families around Conyers. You were fucked, but you couldn't let him think that, or at least believe that you were guilty in anyway. Your stealing wasn't going to find those girls because you had no idea where in the world they were. You had never seen them before their faces were plastered on every hour of the news.

"Shouldn't my lawyer be here if you are going to accuse me of something?"

"Do you need a lawyer?"

"Do I, Detective?"

It was the attitude that angered him the most. A woman like you didn't need to steal. Based on your records, he had no reason to truly believe you would. Clean record. No screaming signs of intent or distrust popped out but he knew you were guilty. There was not a doubt. But there was something in that attitude that made him squirm. An attractive quality that he did not want to admit.

"If you answer the questions I ask truthfully, then no, you won't need a lawyer."

"Ask away." You leaned back in the chair with arms crossed and a determined narrowness to your eyes. It was a challenge. Try me, Detective. Do it, I dare you.

"When did you first start stealing?"

"When I was seven. My sister always had better stuff, so I took it."

"And that escalated to...what?" Instead of leaning back on his own chair, Loki leaned forward. His shoulders were hunched in an aggressive, intense tactic to scare you into admitting something that you didn't have any part of. He just wanted to find those girls and you happen to be a speed bump in the way.

"Minor petty theft. I never take anything over $500."

"How do you know what something is worth?"

"I'm sure you can find that in my file, Detective. Everything is there I am sure of it. You all know just how to frame the people you want. But I had nothing to do with those girls."

Loki's line of aggravation was growing thin. Sooner or later, attitude wasn't going to cut it and he was going to have to use the tactics he used on Alex Jones and other potential perpetrators on you. He never liked to get outright violent with women, but he couldn't let this go without trying to get something. The days were wearing thin and he needed to find Joy and Anna.

"You were in the Dover's house the night of the abduction. Where are the girls?"

"I told you I didn't have anything to do with that."

"Didn't or don't."

"Doesn't matter. I did not see them. I do not know where they are. Ruining children's lives isn't my MO, Detective-"

"But you do and you did! YOU were in that house. YOU were at the scene of the crime at the time they went missing. YOU are the one who knows what happened to those girls!" His voice was no longer steady and calm as he had been taught during his training. His string had snapped when in response, you laughed.

Loki flew out of his chair, rounded the table as the sound of his chair skidded across the floor and to the wall behind him. If you weren't so focused on him, you probably could have heard the surprised yells of the Detectives and Officers behind the mirror. The angered Detective roughly arrived at his destination–you, and grabbed the back of your hair, pulling your head back to look at him as he stood over you.

"Where the fuck are the girls?" It came out like a hiss. His eyes enraged with pain for the families and his own reputation if the case goes wrong and he doesn't find them in enough time. You weren't scared of him or his tactics. Rather, it was quite the opposite. If he wasn't attractive, you would have been disgusted but the man was the epitome of perfection and this scene would be one to get you off for years to come.

"I told you, I don't know where the girls are." He gripped your hair harder and you felt the chair waver underneath you. Still not scared.

"You're a liar, a fucking thief, and I don't believe you. Where are the girls? Do you like that sort of thing, huh? Do-"

"You sick fuck. I'm a thief not a fucking pedophile. I didn't take the girls!" You were slightly taken aback by his suggestion, but it was all a tactic. You had seen it on millions of police shows before. He just wanted answers, but he wasn't going to find them with you. Whatever in the sentence you had just spoken to him, Loki was worse off for it. He practically lifted you by the hair and charged you into the wall roughly. Not enough to leave a mark, but enough to make a point. He wasn't playing around but neither were you.

Loki's hand let go of your hair and one found itself on the wall next to your head as he closed in on you. You could feel his breathe on your face and his eyes pierced your goddamned soul. The other, well the other found itself right on your neck, holding you in place against the wall with a slight squeeze. Holy fuck.

"Keep this up Detective and I would have the means to believe this might lead to something else." The smile, your smile crept up on your face at your own assumption. You wouldn't complain if it did escalate to that.

"TELL ME WHERE THE GIRLS ARE? WHERE IS ANNA? WHERE IS JOY?"

"I told you I DON'T KNOW WHERE THE GIRLS ARE!"

There was something in your own anger that made him want to believe you didn't take the girls or had any clue where they were. He would hate to see a woman like you throw your life away for a career of crime. The proximity between the two of you was next to none. A knife wouldn't have been able to break the tension and the way he held you, unintentionally violent with a hand just a little too suggestively on your neck was a mistake but not one that he was readily going to admit. If this was any other situation, he might have let himself be willing to feel something more. But this was an interrogation, so he kept the face and squeezed just a little harder.

"Where are they? Tell me where they are?"

"Starting to sound like a broken record there. I would tell you again but I'm sure you have my admission of NOT KNOWING WHERE THEY ARE ON TAPE!"

Loki had enough and let your neck go with a jolt. His hands went to his belt where his cuffs were sitting and he pulled them out and turned you around. Your body was flush against the wall and one of his large, tattooed hands held your wrists together as he went to cuff them. This was another thing that would forever be engrained in your "sexy when it shouldn't be" file in your brain.

"Fine. You won't tell me where they are? Maybe a night in lock up will make you think." His voice was low, just at the base of your ear and his hot breath lingered on your neck as you could hear nothing but your heart beating out of your chest and the sound of cuffs closing.

But the man didn't get much further than that because the door to the room opened and like two deer in headlights, you both turned your heads to the sound of the intruder. It was another officer who looked both scared and amused and slightly embarrassed in regard to what he walked in on. He approached Loki as the latter man pulled you off the wall and forward, in front of him to walk toward the door.

"It was the hospital. Joy Birch was just admitted."

The look on Loki's face was priceless. You literally scoffed out loud and turned your face to his.

"I told you I had no fucking idea where they were."

Loki simply passed you over to the other officer and headed to the door, frustrated and confused about his own work and internal feelings about what had just happened–both the realization that you had no idea where they were and that he had been aggressive to the point where it kind of turned him on.

"Detective!" He was halfway out the door when you called out to him and if he had a mind, he would have ignored you and continued on, but he was so flustered that he did.

"If you ever want to use those cuffs sometime, you know where to find me."

Loki didn't say anything, but his eyes wandered. From your face to your body to the floor and back up. It was an unashamed look that made the officer uncomfortable, but you couldn't help but let a small, sly smile grace your face at his look. This man would be the end of your criminal career if he managed to find the time to reunite with you again.

And he did. Two days after Keller Dover was found in a hole and on a holiday he knew you were not going to spend with your family.

#Detective Loki x Reader #Detective Loki x Female Reader #Prisoners #Prisoners 2013 #Jake Gyllenhaal x oc #Jake Gyllenhaal x Reader #David Loki x reader #David Loki x Female Reader #Detective Loki x fem reader #Detective Loki #fanfic #writer #x reader #x female reader #i imagine after the christmas trist reader does in fact serve time for theft. but we ignore that for now.

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katsukikitten · 4 years ago

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Warnings College AU sexual and adult themes. Yall know the drill okay

Chapter 2

Bugzapper⚡💔: i have a proposition to make.

Jiro flashes Mina her phone as she sips iced coffee in the blessed air conditioning of the cafe.

"That's never a good sign." She comments, moon bright eyes glued to the phone as she thinks.

"What's not a good sign?" Uraraka asks from across the table, the two girls fill her in.

"Oh." She racks her brain on what that could be, "Okay well I'm dying to know, now."

🎵Music to my soul 🎶 : What do you want airhead?

Jiro's text sent a surge of excitement through Kaminari. It was exactly what he needed after three hours of begging and bribing Bakugou to allow the sorority in or at least invite them. His fingers fly across the screen setting up a date and time for a "meeting over lunch" to discuss the proposition in further detail.

Meanwhile across campus, you huff, eyes narrowed as a rare emotion is pulled from your fingertips in the form of deadly ice. Pulling the moisture from the air to freeze it or pulling any water towards you to keep your flank safe as your opponent rushes you at breakneck speeds.

You hated this fucking guy, cocky, brash, so God damn arrogant in the way he held himself, in the way he spoke. It made you nauseous just thinking of him.Had you known he was the male star of this university you wouldn't have transferred, yet you still needed to transfer didn't you? Anything to get out from under the shadow of a certain Todoroki.

No one cared to admit or to notice, that your quirk was different from Shoto's. You could manipulate water towards you to freeze, and manipulate whatever was already frozen. Your ice was denser and more durable than his and dare you say it colder than his too. Yet no one gave a shit, his was ice AND fire. You were just a one trick pony and a trick they already saw. Your opponent's taunting doesn't help matters much.

"I've already seen this before Ice Brat. Did ya forget where I fucking went to high school?" His hand heats the ice as he activates his quirk before three deafening blasts ring out.

As you allow him to break down the ice you act on pure rage, securing some revenge from the first time he signed your hair. Pointed icicles lie in wait and once the wall is fully down you give him a nasty smirk before sending the straight his way.

You're supposed to melt your weapons before they hit your opponent, neither of you are supposed to go all out per the professor's and college's strict rules in the athletics department but Bakugou always does. Somehow his big stupid mouth spews something that eggs you on. As if someone were shoving bamboo skewers beneath your skin, under your nails, sending you into an unheard of rage.

Normally you were as your quirk, icy, unbothered by the world but Bakugou, God you could wring his neck. Freeze his hot blood as you watch him turn into slush beneath your feet.

He expects you to abide by the rules, to splash him with glacier water but he realizes it too late. That you won't he let's off a quick blast, shattering two of the four deadly points. One grazes his cheek as he just barely dodges while the other lodges itself into his arm.

You have half a mind to twist it. You pull at his blood bringing it into your arsenal. Blood red needles and bullets surround Bakugou.

"I don't think you've seen this before.." You say darkly ready to release your hold and shred him into, give him a taste of his own medicine. Maybe he would see how bitter and nauseating he was. He smirks, opening his mouth to retort but you send your ice his way aiming for non vital spots although the ice creeps closer to your heart begging it to hit something vital. The inside of your ice palace begins to reek of burning sugar and spice, he plans to let out an explosion to bring this whole place down from the inside out.

Just as he is about to detonate and just as the blood and ice are about to pierce skin the professor bursts into the gym.

"I step out for five minutes and this is what happens?!"

The ice and blood return to liquid splashing across Bakugou as his skin pops. The professor takes in the damage from your ice and his explosions, still better controlled than most of his other students quirks.

"I gotta stop pairing these two together." He murmurs to himself before dismissing class. With a flick of your wrist the ice fortress melts, returning to the reservoir below the gym floor, ignoring the molten glare that is sent your way.

"You're such a bitch." Bakugou growls as you pass, flinging blood from his fingers as he wipes at his face. You offer him a fake pitying smile before heading into the women's locker room.

"Fucking asshole." You hiss, forcing the sight of his garnet gaze out of your mind. Instead turning your attention to your buzzing phone in your locker. It's a few missed calls and some texts in the girl's group chat. Briefly you wonder if you ever should have joined that stupid sorority, it was small, non toxic, and would look good should you need to transfer again.

Not only did you somehow get elected the president but you also became friends with the three other ladies despite your best efforts not too.

Mins: Prez we might have a way to save the sorority...lunch after you're done with training?

IceQueen ❄: Hope it's good, the Dean already put the house up for sale. Let me get ready and I'll be there shortly.

Mina presents her phone to the crowd around her, Kirishima, Denki, Sero, Jiro and Uraraka do a small celebration. Denki more so than anyone else, he knows the combined car washes will be more than enough to fix up the house, he also recently learned that you had the power of negotiation on your side. Having just listened to Mina retell the story of how you got free food for a month from a bar for yourself and your friends. And not from some sleaze who wanted to sleep with you either, no it was from the owner himself.

Denki is hopeful and so are the ladies indicating that this may be his best idea yet.

You arrive at the small bistro early, spying your party on the front patio. The three men had seen you in person before, they knew you were easy on the eyes but up close you were breathtaking. Manicured nails but nothing gaudy, normally nude or soft shades, light makeup, mascara at most as far as they could tell and your outfit was well put together. You were what the world called plus size but everyone else called thiccc. Your confidence oozing in your light blouse tucked into your black skinny jeans, uncaring that you had a pouch.

You needed that extra fat to keep from freezing by your own quirk. The only thing you needed society to worry about was your intelligence and your power.

Both were SSR ranked so what did you fucking care that your body was ranked lower. They were stupid in thinking you'd skimp power in the name of vanity.

You recognize everyone at the table and internalize the dread you're feeling. Scheming is afoot and you're the last to arrive. You can tell by their half finished drinks and picked over appetizer, still you sit and act unaware. Denki goes to hold out his hand first for a formal introduction causing a sly cat smile to settle over your glossy lips.

"No need, I'm aware of who the three of you are. Sero we share our lingual class, Denki, our chemistry class, and Kirishima we share two classes, world studies and villain hero theory. Truly a pleasure." You tell then your name before ordering something to drink from the lingering waitress. Sitting stick straight with your shoulders backs has the men mirroring you.

"Well ladies I take it the plan to save the sorority involves these fine gentlemen." You ask coolly and they nod. After a moment of silence Mina and Denki go to speak. Awkwardly encouraging the other to speak until Minai clears her throat.

"As you know they are a newly formed frat with Sero as their president. They moved into their house about a month ago and they say it is quite large. So they have invited us to move in."

"How do you propose we ask the college to have a co-ed house? What does this fraternity home even look like?" They knew you would be quick to ask questions Mina answers the first while Denki provides the answer to the second.

"Union and Diversity. Forming close relationships now to carry over into our hero careers."

"The house needs some work but looks a lot better than what it did." Denki shows you before and after pictures as you gesture for his phone. He passes you his electric yellow case with nervous hope tingling beneath his skin. You swipe through the photos.

"You boys did a great job on the outside. Inside needs a lot of work. Hardwoods will be easy to fix, they are original but don't seen to be damaged, a good scrub will spruce them up. Wait, are those?" You zoom in on the photo of the living room, "Are those foldable camping chairs and a VHS tv?"

They gulp loudly as they nod, your purse your lips in disapproval.

"I can fix that." You pass Denki back his phone, assuming that all the roommates will be present, "I see the main focus was the kitchen but some of the appliances seem to be on their last legs. I can fix that as well."

"Soooo….So it's a yes?" Jiro asks, feeling relief for the first time in months since they received the letter of eviction.

"Gotta get the college to agree first." You think on it a moment, "But I'm sure we can arrange that. Uraraka can you draft an email to the Dean requesting an official meeting regarding our sorority? Be sure to explain in detail our situation, how we are being forced to disband by their account and the solution we have. Make sure it's an afternoon meeting too. The dean hates to miss golf with our rival university's dean."

With the plan set in motion all of you return to your evening classes. Jiro nudges Denki in the ribs, listening to his heart race from their closeness.

"When are we going to tell her about Bakugou?" She throws her almost lover a look that he seems to wither beneath. His jaw tics before he retorts.

"I think we should wait to see if this even works first."

After a week the important meeting arrives and as you thought the Dean is already exhibiting signs of impatience. He is more than ready to wrap this up and you already know his answer is going to be no. Already trying to get it out before the four of you can even have a seat.

Still you weren't the Ice Queen on campus for nothing. You saunter into the room, mineola folder filled with your copies of counterpoints pressed firmly to your chest, you can already see he doesn't have the copies you sent him. You place the folder down and open it, leafing through the pages as you speak.

"This request is going to be approved and here are the reasons why. An example of sexism could be made that a new fraternity was approved housing, new housing, after a decades old sorority was deemed "too small" both parties are similar in count. Second funding and donations are easily influenced with letters to alumni and especially by attendees to this university. My transfer from YAU has brought in revenue of roughly 2.6 million dollars, increasing your diversity for women when this is normally a male dominated school. I am aware that my transfer had even encouraged other students from YAU to transfer here. Which I'm sure is one of your favorite bragging points to tell Dean Fraunk during your weekly golf trips isn't it? So it would truly be a shame if these points would come to light in the investigation of my return to YUA just months before the university sports festival. I do look amazing in Ice Blue you know. Matches my quirk a lot better than Maroon." You put the ball in his court, he is visibly upset, eyes flying to the facts that you've presented. All important, viable facts. You were right MMU was known to be a male dominated school and the media would have a field day if they uncovered a mistake he happened to look over. Not to mention you were his main bragging point, Dean Yuzi always talked about how he had stolen you, the female star of rising heroes, from YUA. The silence in the room is amplified by the ticking of the clock, seconds accumulating into minutes as it counts down his T time with his old college buddy and rival. He gulps nervously, knowing what he has to do in order to keep both his bragging rights and a law suit under wraps. He looks up to you as you wear your stone cold face, making him think of a loan shark who hasn't been getting their payments on time. He is fearful for your future boss.

"I believe I have no choice but to approve."

"Correct." You respond, "Now we have a bit more to discuss. I noticed that classrooms 456 and 215 are being remodeled. Those gently used flat screens will be given to our house since it is technically college property. Common space 3 and 1 are being renovated in dorms A and B. We will accept the leather arm chairs as they are in good shape but we demand a new couch. I know it is in the budget as I help plan the budget. I also believe it is time for an allowance for our hybrid house." The Dean shrinks away from your tenacity, nodding as that is all he can do.

"Well this is a generous offer and should cover most of the basic necessities such as a new fridge and mattress. The aesthetic we will be raising funds for. Kindly spread the word, we don't want to take up more of your time and be late with your 'meeting' with Dean Fraunk." You place a flyer on his desk as you turn on your heel. The rest of the sorority, mouth agape following suit. Yuzi looks down at the flyer, head hung in a mixture of disbelief and shame as he reads over the neon paper advertising a co-ed car wash.

He just hopes you and Bakugou are worth the trouble.

#bakugo x reader #bakugou x reader #bnha x reader #bakugou katsuki #bnha au #bnha college au #bnha imagine

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adifferenttime · 4 years ago

Text

Honest Hearts: A Rough Rewrite

Hey! I’ve been working on an Honest Hearts rewrite-type-thing for a bit and figured I’d solicit feedback/assemble a post to store some of these ideas.

A detailed explanation of the premise is under the cut, but I’ve made this as a more interesting reintroduction to major locations, along with the characters who live there. I also have some lore consisting of letters, scripture, and holotapes that’s still in the early stages, along with a complete companion wheel for Salt-Upon-Wounds (he’ll follow you around for a little if you decide to help him out). Endings are now finished as well. I’m not planning on expanding this into a full mod, but I’m assembling everything in Twine so I can utilize branching dialogue and mimic skill checks.

I want to keep adding to and editing this because I’m having fun with it, so if you have any input, let me know!

Essentially, the story proceeds as written up until the point where Daniel sends you to either kill the White Legs or destroy their war totems. You quickly realize that their camp is deserted, at which point Salt-Upon-Wounds ambushes you, convo-locks you, and tells you that there’s an entirely different side to things here that you might not have considered.

Factions

The Mormons have established a theocracy in the Utah called Deseret, with New Jerusalem - what was once Salt Lake City - as its capital. Large numbers of them survived the initial apocalypse due to their pre-War focus on strong community ties and disaster prepping; over time, they have returned to the model of self-sufficient agrarianism that characterized the historical Mormon state of Deseret that existed in Utah in the 1800s. Their President, who wields supreme executive power, is also their Prophet. The Mormons believe he communes directly with God, but there’s some discontent in New Jerusalem over his hands-off approach to foreign policy and unwillingness to assemble a standing army. The Elders of the Priesthood are pushing him to allow for some kind of formal military to oppose what they see as revived versions of their ancestral enemies: America, Rome, and the “Lamanites” (this is what Mormons call Indigenous Americans; the “Lamanite” idea has historically been used as a justification for racism, and I’m reflecting that here because it’d be kind of heinous not to). In more than a few respects, Deseret serves as a mirror to the Legion and an exploration of the other side of the coin re: the tactics utilized by colonial empires to present themselves as legitimate while still claiming territory and steamrolling the opposition.

The White Legs are now more explicitly Shoshone, and I’m relying most heavily on the Timpanagos Band for names and historical inspiration (apparently the question of whether they’re Ute or Shoshone is pretty controversial, but I’m sticking with what the Timpanagos have said about it until someone corrects me). After migrating south in the wake of the Great War, the White Legs eventually settled in Ogden, about a day north of New Jerusalem. Initial interactions with the Mormons were friendly, but as New Jerusalem grew and its need for farmland and resources increased, tensions rose before culminating in open violence in around ‘76 or ‘77. Deseret’s party line is that the White Legs conducted a “raid” on one of their settlements and had to be driven away from Ogden; the White Legs claim the violence was not a raid, but a revenge killing after a Mormon killed a young man and was found not guilty by Mormon legal authorities (this is a theocracy, so “legal authorities” here can be understood as indistinct from “the church”). The Mormons established a new settlement on the ruins of Ogden, which they called New Canaan, and the White Legs fled to Salt Lake, where they have been dwindling in number ever since. Salt-Upon-Wounds’ plan to seek entry to the Legion is a last-ditch attempt to save his people from eradication when their neighbors and the land itself seems intent on killing them (not that that makes all the war crimes ok, which is a sentiment you’ll be able to express to his face if you engage him in conversation).

The Dead Horses are a pastoral society from out of Dead Horse Point, and are split almost down the middle along political lines. The more conservative, religious side opposes intervention in Zion. Graham desecrates the corpses of his enemies as an intimidation tactic, and because the Dead Horses’ religion is so eschatological and heavily focused on properly cleaning, preparing, and interring the dead, a big chunk of the religious leadership opposes him on that basis - they think his tactics are ungodly. They’re also worried that any Dead Horses who die in Zion and are interred there will be severed from their connection to Dead Horse Point and doomed to a separate, lonely afterlife. The younger, more progressive elements of the tribe are less traditionalist, sometimes less religious, and overall not as concerned about Graham’s treatment of the dead because of the potential benefit they might be able to derive from him. Follows-Chalk is their de facto leader, and while the Dead Horses don’t formally allocate political power, he’s among the most influential people in the informal tribal leadership. Most of the Dead Horses who’ve come to Zion have done so either because they support Follows-Chalk politically, or for practical reasons - namely, Graham’s access to a dizzying number of guns and his willingness to give them to anyone who’ll fight for him.

The Sorrows are now a terrace-farming agrarian society instead of hunter-gatherers (Zion has a lot of agricultural potential, and there’s already a few farming plots in the Sorrows camp you see in-game, so it’s not a huge departure from the canon). I’m keeping their Mexican heritage, but I’d like to give them some Ainu influences as well - partially for selfish reasons, but also because bears are extremely important to our culture and theology, which gels well with the elements of Sorrows culture and religion that appear in the canon. I’d like to keep the Survivalist because I like him, but I want to expand on their faith. One of the ways I’m doing that is by deciding they can still read English, even though they no longer speak it; it’s basically their equivalent of liturgical Latin. They’re also rigidly matriarchal and in contrast to the Dead Horses (who eschew formal political hierarchies) or the White Legs (who elect a chief who serves until he dies, is deposed, or voluntarily abdicates), leadership positions are allocated through matrilineal primogeniture; Waking Cloud inherited her position from her mother. Religious leadership, likewise, is only available to women. You’ll be able to talk to Waking Cloud about some of the ways this framework is incompatible with the Mormon perspective, and can appeal to her desire to retain power.

Characters

Canon Characters

Joshua Graham and Daniel are largely unaltered except through the addition of lore that gives insight into their cultures, motives, and pasts.

All three tribal leaders (Follows-Chalk, Waking Cloud, and Salt-Upon-Wounds) are either given new backstories, a different set of motives, or different approaches to one another/Graham and Daniel. They’re also explicitly leaders now - what power Graham and Daniel have, they derive from whichever tribal leader they’ve managed to attach themselves to. Of those three, I’m altering Waking Cloud the least and Salt-Upon-Wounds the most. Like I mentioned, I have a companion wheel for him so far and the bones of two other conversations - one, where you meet him for the first time, and the second, where you speak to him before the final battle. Will link as I finish them.

Original Characters

Each tribal leader now has a rival or right hand within their tribe so I can reflect the different ways the values of a specific community can express themselves.

Follows-Chalk’s primary rival among the Dead Horses is a man who refuses to tell you his name. That’s because using someone’s name in casual conversation is considered unspeakably rude, and the fact that Follows-Chalk is willing to share his own with you is, to Mysteriously Named Old Man Character, yet another sign of how disrespectful and laissez-faire Follows-Chalk is about their shared traditions. Old Man Character is suspicious of you initially, but if you speak to him more he starts to warm to you. The goal is to give you a sense that this he’s pretty xenophobic but for good reasons, and despite his political conflicts with Follows-Chalk, has a lot of love for him. He just wants what’s best for his family, and Follows-Chalk is part of that, even if Mysteriously Named Old Man Character thinks he’s making the wrong choices.

Kiiki is Salt-Upon-Wounds’ right-hand woman and intended as a contrast re: the approach to war and its costs. Salt-Upon-Wounds has done some horrible things and gets a fair bit of dialogue about that, but Kiiki is willing to go even further than he has with very little prompting. Her chief copes with what he’s done by trying to assure himself that the ends of war are worth the cost; Kiiki deals with it by trying to convince herself that the means weren't so bad, actually, and that anyone who isn’t nailing corpses to walls is being naive. All of that makes her sound pretty shitty, but she’s nowhere near as devoted to the idea of a Legion alliance as Salt-Upon-Wounds is. It only takes one very low Speech check to convince her that going Legion is a bad move, and one of the paths involves assassinating Salt-Upon-Wounds and installing her as the new leader as a way to stop the White Legs from joining Caesar. I haven’t added this path to the ending Twine because I’d like to finish Kiiki’s dialogues before I do that.

I’m replacing White Bird as the Sorrow’s spiritual leader with a woman named Imekanu. She’s incredibly old, savvy, and knowledgeable - she’s never been outside Zion, but has a store of books in English, Spanish, and Japanese that have allowed her some insight into what caused the war, if not the current state of the world. She’s also aware of the Survivalist’s origins - not because she’s entered any of his hideouts, but because she’s read over the scriptures and has correctly identified them as letters. Her perspective is that the Father in the Caves was a human being, but that doesn’t diminish his religious value. She sees him as analogous to the Buddha or a Catholic saint: human, sure, but still with access to some deeper truths about the purpose of man and the nature of human goodness. You’ll discover that this idea (that the Survivalist was a holy man rather than a literal god) is the most common perspective among the Sorrows, and you can talk to her about how this departs from Daniel’s perspective that the archetypal Father is divine, not human.

Quests

Each tribe has a specific quest that will either lower or bypass some of the penultimate checks that will determine your ending (people are more likely to believe what you’re telling them if you’ve already won their trust).

The Dead Horses: Joshua Graham has been putting the heads of the fallen up on pikes across Zion. The Dead Horses’ religion is deeply concerned with proper treatment of the deceased, and Graham’s decision to desecrate the corpses of his enemies goes against virtually everything they believe. The old man who won’t tell you his name asks you to take the heads off of the pikes and bury them deep in Zion, and to bring Follows-Chalk with you so you’ll have someone to tell you how to treat them properly. Over the course of the quest, Follows-Chalk will share some of his own beliefs about death, and you’ll have the opportunity to share your own. If you complete this quest without sabotaging it, Follows-Chalk will be willing to betray Graham to the White Legs before the final battle.

The Sorrows: This is basically just Ghost of She, but after defeating the Yao Guai you’ll discover a holotape revealing that the girl wasn’t killed by the bear, but by one of the murderers from Vault 22. Waking Cloud will speculate that maybe the Yao Guai wasn’t the ghost of the little girl at all but some other force that wanted to push you to discover the truth. If you wait until the end to tell Waking Cloud about the death of her husband, you’ll have to pass a Speech check of 75 to convince her you’re telling her the truth; completing this quest drops the check to 50.

The White Legs: Salt-Upon-Wounds will ask you to help him sabotage the Mormons’ preparations for the battle. If you help him with this, it’ll drop the Speech check for you to convince him to leave from 100 to 80. It’s not necessary at all to get the tribal confederacy ending, but a new note will appear in your inventory if you finish it and meet a couple other requirements (asking him certain questions, not attempting that one Speech check about religion, etc).

Endings

I’m trying to incorporate as much variety as possible, but there are three main ending paths: siding with the White Legs, siding with the other two tribes, and peace. The basic idea is that the outcome is predicated less on your direct intervention, and more on how other people act based on the facts they have available to them. Most of your influence is through your choices to hide or reveal key pieces of information, and the skill checks you need to access certain endings are less you convincing a character to do something and more convincing a character to believe you’re telling them the truth. There’s one major exception to this, it requires maxed Speech, and the ending it gives you is markedly bittersweet because you’re trying to get a guy to act against his own best interest. I’m writing all the endings up here, and will probably edit them as things change. The post where I explain them in more depth can be found here.

And that’s the story so far! Thank you for reading, and again: if there’s anything here you think is poorly-conceived, let me know. Thank you to @baelpenrose, who’s a grad student in the history of the American West, for helping me workshop a lot of this stuff. If you’ve got expert knowledge on any of the concepts I touch on or are personally a member of any of the groups I’m describing, please feel free to hmu: anon is on, and you’re always welcome to DM me. I’m just doing this for fun, but I still want it to be as not-shit as possible.

#fallout new vegas #fnv #honest hearts #honest hearts rewrite #probably should have started with initial conversations but oh well lmao

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echo-three-one · 4 years ago

Text

Whatever It Takes : RELOADED

Let's make the next chapter pink.

Table of Contents

Previous Chapter : Undying Admiration

Chapter 21 to another story made by Ray (echo-three-one) Comments and Reviews appreciated! I hope you enjoy! Love you all ❤️

back at it again with the piccrew

If I Remember Correctly

Maxine Winters

Safe House 110197, Brazil

Maxine looked at Samantha and smiled. They were finally together once again, as roommates, but this time, the room was huge and they were surrounded by strong men who were willing to risk their lives to protect them.

"How are you holding up?" Maxine asked.

"Everything's a swirl of hazy incomplete memories. It feels like I'm mostly recalling them back, but the details are a bit mixed. It doesn't feel right that I recall Alex as someone from work, right?" she chuckled. She must've been going through a lot of things right now, and it looked like Alex successfully helped her recall most of her forgotten memories. Maybe all she needed was someone to influence her.

"Hey Sam, what kinds of things have I told you about my past? France already told me some of my unforgettable memories but they still seem too unclear." She asked, Samantha looked excited as she began recalling something from the unaltered part of her memory.

"Well, for starters you told me a lot about your little sister. However since your mother died, the two of you were always together solving the problems as a team until you both decided to enlist her in the army. You told it was both the happiest and saddest moment of your life." She said with a smile on her face. Maxine never felt anything but knowing that that was their situation, it made sense how France was trying hard to win her back. She was the only one she had. And it must've hurt that the only companion she ever had didn't even remember her.

"I… I didn't know that…" she faltered. Samantha quickly reached out a hand to hold hers.

"Just take your time to remember… I'm sure France understands the situation." Samantha replied, turning to the door as it slowly pushed itself open. Alex peeked from the said door and asked.

"Am I disturbing any girl talk?"

"A little. But I'll forgive you for now." Samantha grinned as Alex entered the room, dressed in comfortable sleeping wear.

"I made a deal with France to swap sleeping positions for tonight. Make sure skipping tomorrow's pancake will be worth it." he winked as he settled behind Samantha, the spooning was awkward as his metal leg was unbendable and heavy, but Maxine noticed the smile in Samantha's eyes and how it quickly forgot the uncomfort he was giving her. Maybe that's true love.

"Aw… I was about to add extra honey to your plate, Alex. What you did to Samantha was the sweetest thing ever. I guess France is up for a treat." She joked, making the girls giggle while Alex furrowed his brows.

"Well then, this night better be worth it." He proceeded to tickle Samantha and they found themselves rolling and rolling. Maxine took a minute to admire the scenery before her eyes slowly closed itself to sleep.

Ever since being brainwashed, Maxine wasn't able to dream of something, every morning she would be greeted by the same empty feeling, her thoughts would always consist of recent events.

This night was different. She vividly recalled a rainy afternoon. She and Francine stood by their mother's grave.

"I'm going to the army next week, Mom. It might take a while since I'll be seeing you again." Francine knelt and placed a small floral pot they arranged.

"Yeah Mom, your daughter finally used her toughness somewhere other than fighting me!" She remembered herself joking and nudging her sister. These were things that they did on a weekly basis, visit their mother’s grave and talk about their week.

“And since she’s out training for the rest of her life, I decided to move to California, maybe look for restaurants to work on maybe look for someone special.” Maxine mused. She could hear France giggle.

“I, on the other hand, won’t let myself fall for any of those tough army men.” France added.

“Are you sure about that? It’s like… turning down a million dollar offer.” Maxine teased.

“It really depends on the person. But while I’m in training, I’ll focus on improving.” She amended.

Then the memory faded, it felt like tv static started to consume her whole dream until she found herself awake, gasping for air.

“You okay?” Alex groggily asked her, cuddling Samantha who was sound asleep. She nodded and got up, she felt very thirsty.

Maxine hurriedly walked down the stairs quietly passing the empty command center. Oddly enough, the kitchen light was open and she could hear soft clanking of cutlery. She took a peek at Gary Sandersom, who’s sticking his tongue out and too busy making finishing touches on a cake of sorts. She knew they didn't have the right mould for basic pastries but seeing him actually holding a cake, surprised her.

“So this is the reason I wake up to missing ingredients.” She spoke firmly and crossed her arms, walking closely to Roach who scrambled and immediately hid the cake behind him.

“I’m just trying out new stuff. Baking looked fun.” He lied, stepping further back until his butt hit the sink.

“I already saw what you’re working on Gary. How did you form the shape? We didn’t have any mold.”

“When there’s a will, there’s a way.” He smiled proudly and showed her his cake. It was cylindrical, almost like that of a

“Mugs.” he explained as Maxine crept closer to his work, her eyes probed around it like a judge from masterchef.

“Wow. This looks nice. Is this for you?” she asked, feeling Gary’s body shake differently.

“Actually, it’s for you… France told me about your birthday and since I already missed it. I wanted to share one with you. You know… for uh… formality.” he stuttered. It was obvious that Gary was nervous. She felt this ever since they started cooking together, and she noticed that he was improving around her.

“Aww… thanks. No one’s ever baked a cake for me. Samantha just buys them.” Maxine chuckled and sat on the chair as Gary pulled out a candle and lit it.

“I’m supposed to give you one before we leave tomorrow. I guess you got too excited.” he laughed nervously and gently placed his hand on her shoulder. Maxine gently reached for the hand and grazed it softly, smiling at Gary’s excited face.

“Make a wish.” Gary whispered, his minty breath tickled her nose. Maxine closed her eyes as the warm flame heated her cheeks. She would have wished for something personal, but instead she wished for something she thought needed to happen first.

“I wish… that this war will be over.” she opened her eyes and blew her candle as Roach silently clapped and cheered.

“Belated Happy Birthday Maxine.” He greeted with a warm hug, Maxine slowly gave in to his embrace and faced him. Tension sparked in the air between them as the chemicals moving between them started to react to each other, drawing their lips closer to each other. It was almost automatic, none of them held back as their lips clashed into a soft yet intense kiss. Their tongues were too shy to act but the lips were eager to meet again, soft smooches filled the quiet kitchen as their hands started to climb up to their faces.

“I.. um..” Gary shyly held back, his hands parted from her cheeks as they both stepped back from each other.

“It’s okay…" She whispered quickly, turning back to get herself a glass of water to calm herself from her nightmare and to cool off the heat of her body.

"I take it you're going back to bed?" Gary asked, leaning his arms across the table, looking at the cake.

"I think I can't sleep after that dream." She muttered. The reply signaled Roach to grab a fork and sit beside her.

"Dream? You're having dreams now?" Roach asked curiously, taking a slice off the cake and pointing the fork to her mouth.

"Yeah." Maxine continued with a vivid description of her dream, Roach momentarily spoon feeding her with cake every after thought.

Maxine actually stayed all morning talking to Roach, they discussed mostly about her dream and Roach was there to listen. He was what Maxine needed at the moment, a great listener who happened to be someone she's starting to fall for. She could also feel him growing close to her, that wasn't just any birthday kiss… I felt something else.

Maxine was almost jealous of Roach's colorful life. He shared so much of him that she actually felt guilty that she was only able to share one. He had lots of stories involving encounters with animals and most of it was about his dog.

"If you were to choose… Which animal would you prefer as a pet?" Gary asked curiously. The question made Maxine stop and think, admiring the slowly rising sun as she goes.

"Parrots sound fun. They talk back."

"Only if you teach them to…" Gary responded. He always does that, he's adding comments to her replies until they both agreed on a thing.

"Why do you keep doing that?" Maxine finally asked.

"Do what?"

"You know, influencing me to agree on your opinion?"

"I just want you to think I actually have something to say… Plus it keeps the conversation going… because I never really wanted it to stop." He smiled.

"Oi, Roach. Why is there no hot water yet?" Price yelled.

"Hang on Captain! The kettle isn't whistling yet!" Roach replied running to the kitchen leaving an amazed Maxine behind. A few minutes later Francine approached her.

No words were spoken as Maxine immediately wrapped her sister around her arms, she was really all she had and she was guilty that she couldn't remember her when they first met.

"I'm glad you found me… even amidst this mess." Maxine whispered to France's ears. She could feel her tears falling on her as they enjoyed the tender moment of their reunion.

"I remembered only one memory. Of us before we separated and lived independently. I think it's all I needed to truly tell who I am." Maxine said as Francine sobbed.

"I love you sis." France hugged again as they both cried.

Next Chapter : Going Dark Part 1

Notification Squad my Beloved

@smokeywhalee @samatedeansbroccoli @enderio @whimsywispsblog @beemybee @ricinbach

#horrayfic #john soap mactavish #john price #simon ghost riley #alex echo 3 1 #gary roach sanderson

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cosmicstxrdust · 4 years ago

Text

I Won’t Back Down - Five Hargreeves x OC

Word Count: 1,982

You can stand me up at the gates of hell But I won't back down I'm gonna stand my ground Won't be turned around And I'll keep this world from dragging me down

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

Pt. 3- Monday, April 1, 2019

The morning of the first dawned with a bright blue sky and perfect spring temperatures, almost in mocking irony of the fate it would meet later on that same day. Suspecting nothing amiss, Lola began her usual morning routine of getting ready for school. After brushing her teeth, she went to her closet and decided on a pair of jeans, a white, long-sleeved v-necked shirt with black polka-dots and after brushing her hair, hesitated over a choice of hats that she owned. While there was no strict dress code at her school, she did like to make a good first impression on Mondays. The rest of the week was up for grabs.

Coming to a decision, she reached for a yellow hat with a navy-blue ribbon around the crown that was tied in a bow and placed it jauntily on her head. The brunette was somewhat known around school for her unique accessories so she’d only been indecisive over which style she’d wanted, not actually whether or not to wear a hat. She then pulled on a pair of riding-styled boots and picked up her backpack, sliding her deck of cards into the back pocket of her jeans. Lunchtime was usually a boring affair so it was often when she would practice her magic- sometimes with a crowd to entertain.

On her route to school, Lola passed the familiar Umbrella Academy house and wondered what transpired within the walls, remembering the strange man she’d met the previous week. She wondered how long it had been since all of the siblings had seen each other since from Vanya’s book, it hadn’t seemed like they’d lived under the same roof for a long, long time. A smile flickered across her face as she thought of grown-up superheroes attempting to act like real siblings and the interesting, chaotic bickering that might ensue.

(Of course, she had no idea that such arguments might result in the end of life on earth.)

After that, the day passed as it usually did, with millions and billions of people completely unaware of what the night would bring.

Once dinner was over, Lola scraped her plate clean and set it in the dishwasher before turning it on to run, blatantly unaware that this would be the last time she did such a mundane action for a long, long time. Then, she made her way into the family room where her mother, father and uncle were sitting on the couch about to watch TV. Both men had their traditional after-dinner drink of two fingers of whiskey while her mother sipped on spiked hot coffee.

“Mom?” Lola asked.

“Yes, dear?”

“I’m going to the basement now, all of the dinner dishes are cleaned up.”

Her mother’s blue eyes- the ones she’d inherited- flicked to the younger girl, “alright, but don’t stay up too late. It’s a school night, you know.”

Her uncle grinned, “yeah,” he said, breaking to take a sip from his glass, “wouldn’t want you to show up all grumpy for school tomorrow.”

Lola sighed and nodded in acceptance, “alright, I’ll do my best,” she said, knowing it was more than likely she’d lose track of time anyway.

Moving first towards her mother, then father and finally her uncle, she gave them each a goodnight hug and exchanged their daily I love yous.

(She would be grateful that these were the last words she’d ever said to her family. At least she wouldn’t have to live wondering if her family had known she’d loved them.)

Then, she went to the basement.

Not even a mile away, the beginnings of an altercation were occurring at the house the size of a single block where the seventh, disregarded member of the family of superheroes was receiving a hostile welcome at the introduction of her new boyfriend, Leonard Peabody.

Lola liked her basement. It wasn’t terribly large but it wasn’t terribly small, either. Half of it was unfinished and the other half was lived-in, creating a perfect balance. In the unfinished side, metal shelves that one might see in a hardware store stood floor-to-ceiling with various tools and stored holiday items. Paint cans, electric machinery, extension cords and other items one would normally find in a shed were scattered haphazardly along the shelves.

In the other half, a carpeted floor of some green color stretched from the back wall to right before Lola’s writing desk. On top of it sat an old, brown-leather couch, a black wooden coffee table from IKEA and a TV hung mounted on the wall. After the carpet ended, removable foam-padded tiles formed the floor. This was the area where Lola’s desk sat which was a large, white table. The desktop itself was almost empty except for her half-filled notebook, three different-sized candles, a pencil sharpener and a pencil holder. Her papers- both for school and other things- were stored in a hand-me-down brown file cabinet that stood to the left of her workspace.

Before sitting down to write, the brunette carried out her ritual warm-up: lighting the candles, flipping to the next available page, sharpening her pencil and placing her reference books on her desk- The Book Thief, of course, and her new book from Vanya Hargreeves. Then, she pulled her deck of cards from her back pocket and placed the rectangular box carefully on the lower-left corner of her desk, making sure to match up the corners of the box with the outlined shape created by the corner. She wasn’t sure why she did this, it just was something she absolutely had to do before she finally sat down.

Once finished, Lola made sure to flip the electric lights off and returned to her seat which was a rolly-chair with one broken wheel. She began to write surrounded by her small pool of glowing, flickering light.

Today’s memory is from when I was six. (Note to self: find a better opening.) It was my first time at the store for hours on end. Usually, a babysitter would come by and pick me up but I suppose she cancelled. (NtS: get more details. Just kidding, nobody cares about that.) Anyway, I was super bored and since I was little, I didn’t have any schoolwork to do. I wandered around the store for a bit, probably causing mischief. Anyway (you already said that, dummy) the funny part is that I sat down at a group of mannequins because there weren’t any other seats and I must’ve sat so still that everyone thought I was one because when I finally stood up, a woman screamed. I didn’t know why at the time but it happened again when I was older. Then I started doing it for my own amusement. It was funny to see people think that I was a fake, plastic doll only to realize I was actually real. Sometimes, I even went to the back and dressed in clothes that would soon be modeled by the mannequins- although I think the effect was ruined because I didn’t fit them.

A story up and a block over, the altercation had grown to a full-blown verbal assault, the main four members of the family heatedly questioning the new boyfriend’s insistence on them coming to their sister’s concert. The seventh member, feeling hurt and angry that her family wouldn’t, just once support her, felt the tension build up within her, her emotions unusually high from the lack of medication she’d consistently taken for years until this week.

The spot was also great for people-watching. While Gimbel Brothers has mostly ordinary clients, there are some cases that are more noteworthy (NtS: fix wording, sounds awkward). There are many people who bring children to the store as well. On Mondays, there is an average of twelve children, usually after school. The number varies throughout the week until Saturday where there are usually fifteen or twenty. One time, as an outlier during the holidays, there were twenty-five. I know this because I counted them. I don’t usually do it intentionally and I’m sure I miss some customers but for some reason, all the numbers stick in my head. The funny thing is, I’m terrible at math. I’m also really good at cards, though. I’ve never lost a game of War or Go Fish. My uncle says I’m a counter, which I suppose is true. I’ve also counted all the sequins on one of our formal dresses, just for fun. There were two-hundred and eighty-six.

As the sky grew dark outside, the argument in the large house had reached an all-time high with Leonard Peabody outwardly insulting his girlfriend’s largest brother, inciting his anger and riling him up purposefully, causing him to throw the first punch. The seventh member of the family desperately tried to pull her boyfriend away, to save him from an assault that he would surely not survive. She was right about that, but there was nothing she could do. There was only one person Number One listened to and it wasn’t her.

Anyway, back to people-watching. There was once a rich woman who came to our store. No one could figure out why; we’re not exactly the high-end type. She brought her daughter with her, a pretty, blonde girl with bright blue eyes. Almost like mine, I think, but they looked better on her. I heard her tell Brittany that she wanted to get her granddaughter ‘normal clothes,’ except she said it like an insult. I figure that when her granddaughter came to visit, all she provided were expensive outfits and the girl spilled on them, teaching her the lesson of buying cheaper clothes for little kids. She didn’t say all of that but I made up the story to go along with her request.

Standing over Leonard’s body, the seventh member of the Hargeeves turned on her brother, eyes shining white against her pale face. In his hand, he held a bloody, glass eyeball. Her siblings crowded together, trying to calm her, but she spent all of her life being calm and she was tired of it. Turning her gaze to the academy, the building shook under a ten-point-zero earthquake, the bricks and concrete falling down in rapid succession. Tearing her gaze away from the sight of her childhood hell, she let sound waves resonate through the street, knocking over buildings and causing them to collapse, burying her siblings in rubble. Carelessly, she walked away as anger, sadness and hatred fueled her steps to her apartment where she changed and gathered up her violin for the world’s last performance.

She was very posh too, with fur and everything. She stood still long enough that I could study her coat, which had thirty spots. I’m not sure if it was real fur (if it was, she’s a horrible person), but she certainly acted very high-class, even speaking a little nasally and tilting her head up to look down on Brittany. I think it might’ve been because of Brittany’s skin color. The woman didn’t seem to be very accepting of hard-working people that looked different from her.

At ten o’clock pm, the close of the concert, sound waves so large they felled the building and many blocks over swept through the city. A short, dark-haired woman with a glowing white light in the center of her chest rose above the destruction, sending out pulses of sound to the far-reaching corners of the world. With no one to stop her, no one to shoot a gun next to her ear, the bottled power exploded from her chest sharing with everyone the feelings of hurt and neglect that she’d been forced to endure throughout her childhood. One person alone survived in a basement not much deeper than the fictional character’s she admired, writing away and completely unaware that the world above had changed beyond recognition.

#The Umbrella Academy #Umbrella Academy #five #five hargreeves #five hargreeves x dolores #five hargreeves x oc #five hargreeves x reader #Five x oc #five x dolores #tua five #5 #human dolores #pre-tua #apocalypse #hargreeves #dolores isn't a mannequin #vanya hargreeves

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sheliesshattered · 5 years ago

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This Isn’t A Ghost Story - Chapter 7: The Museum

Whouffaldi non-canon AU. 8 chapters, will be about 32,000 words when complete. Rated Mature for heavier themes in earlier chapters, please contact me privately if you’re worried about triggering topics. Clara Oswald/Twelfth Doctor. Mystery, pining and angst with a happy ending. Available on AO3 under the same username and title. Updates every Friday.

This Isn’t A Ghost Story

Chapter 7: The Museum

13 May 2021, Cairo

“I suppose it’s too much to ask that the museum stay open late for us, today of all days,” Clara said quietly, as they strolled side by side through the nearly empty Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. Even after so many years travelling the world together, she was still cautious about attracting any undue attention from curious strangers, aware as always that no one but her could see or hear her ghost.

“We’re lucky enough as it is that they’re open until nine p.m. on Thursdays,” the Doctor replied. “If the thirteenth had fallen on a Monday this year, we would have been stuck visiting before sunset, they close so early. In 1921, the museum was only open that late because of the party celebrating the new exhibit.”

“You know, until we started planning this anniversary trip, it hadn’t occurred to me that the thirteenth of May that year was a Friday,” she said. “So much for the unluckiness of Friday the thirteenth.”

“Actually, the ancient Egyptians considered thirteen to be a lucky number. To them it symbolised immortality, resurrection, and rebirth.”

“Well, there you go,” Clara said, laughing softly. “Or rather: here we are, a hundred years later. And you’re sure we met at nine?”

He nodded. “The lecture on the exhibit ended just before nine, and we met a few minutes later, as everyone started to disperse into the surrounding rooms. It was half past ten before my colleagues from the dig site were able to pull me away. Unfortunately the museum won’t let us stay that late tonight, but at least we can mark nine p.m. in the right place.”

“One hundred years,” she said, directing a quick smile his way. “Things have changed a bit since then, I suppose,” she added, looking around at the few remaining tourists, half of them reading information about the exhibits on their smartphones. She self-consciously adjusted the small bluetooth headset she wore for show, but no one seemed to be paying her any attention, thankfully.

“They have and they haven’t,” the Doctor shrugged. “The building itself hasn’t changed significantly since I first arrived in Egypt, and the public remains fascinated with the archaeology and the history of the region. Obviously the exhibits have been rearranged over the years, newly discovered artefacts added, but honestly it still looks quite like it did then.”

“I meant more the people than the place. I seem to remember the party in ‘21 being a bit more of a formal affair.”

“They still host black-tie parties here, now and then. We could come back for one someday, if you’re feeling nostalgic.”

“Might be worth another trip to Cairo, if we can figure out a way to get an invite,” she said. “Do you remember what I wore that night?”

The Doctor kept his gaze focused ahead of them and his face carefully blank, but Clara swore he would have blushed if he could. “Yes,” he said shortly.

She laughed fondly and leaned into his shoulder briefly, charmed by his awkwardness even after six and a half years of living as a married couple again. “You’ll have to describe it for me sometime. In a more private location.”

He hesitated then said, “We won’t be able to stay here long tonight, anyway. Play your cards right and I’ll describe it for you in detail once we get back to the hotel.”

“I’m going to hold you to that, mister,” she said, grinning.

They lapsed into comfortable silence as the Doctor led her confidently through the halls of the museum, ending in a smaller room tucked away from the main flow of the central corridor. They had the room to themselves, and Clara let herself relax, shedding her perpetual wariness of someone seeing her interact with her ghost.

“Oh, this wasn’t here before,” the Doctor said as they entered, sounding surprised and pleased. “This is lovely.”

“What is it?” she asked, bemused by his obvious interest.

“It’s a reproduction of the burial chamber of Thutmose the Third, which is in the Valley of the Kings, near Thebes,” he said, looking around at the illustrated walls and the stars painted on the low ceiling, his expression like a kid in a candy shop. “That’s the mummified pharaoh himself, just there,” he added, nodding to a glass-enclosed display case in the middle of the room. “And I imagine the other artefacts are from his tomb, as well.”

“The ceiling is just like my ring,” she noted, glancing up at the spindly stars against the dark blue and fiddling with her wedding ring, its stone opaque now in the diffuse artificial light.

“It was a popular artistic element in the Eighteenth Dynasty,” the Doctor said absently, as he leaned in to examine an intricately carved scarab figurine on display. “Thutmose the Third was the step-son of Hatshepsut, after all, whose temple I took you to see after you found me in Thebes.”

“I forget, sometimes,” Clara said affectionately, “that this is what you spent your life working on. Your true academic passion, above all your other many interests.”

He shot her a quick smile. “It’s why I was in Egypt in the first place, that night in 1921.”

“And you’re sure this is the right place?” she asked, looking around. “The room where we met?” Like the rest of the museum and Cairo in general, it felt vaguely familiar, but nothing specific jumped out at her.

“Quite sure,” he said, meandering around the edge of the room to join her again. “A friend of mine stood in that archway just there, off and on for the better part of an hour, trying to get my attention while I studiously ignored him.”

“Naturally,” she said lightly, “being that you were otherwise occupied with an intriguing stranger.”

“Luckily for me,” he said, smiling down at her.

“So, what are we looking at here?” she asked, gesturing to the complex mural of stylised stick figures that adorned every inch of the walls of the room. “Put that doctorate of archaeology to good use and tell me about this, as we count down to nine p.m.”

The Doctor stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her, and Clara leaned into him, glad for the relative privacy of the enclosed space and the rare chance to touch him while they were in public.

“It’s the Amduat,” he told her, his voice soft near her ear. “Which translates to ‘The Book Of What Is In The Underworld.’ It’s a funerary text that details the sun god Ra’s journey through the land of the dead each night, from sunset to sunrise, on a river that flows from west to east. It’s found painted in the tombs of several pharaohs and on various papyri fragments. The text is divided into the twelve hours of the night, the different gates that Ra — and the recently deceased, who travel with him — must pass through to reach rebirth with the sun at dawn.”

“The twelve hours of the night?” she said, glancing up at him. At his nod, she recited the last eight lines of the poem from memory:

He whispered, “And a river lies Between the dusk and dawning skies, And hours are distance, measured wide Along that transnocturnal tide— Too doomed to fear, lost to all need, These voyagers blackward fast recede Where darkness shines like dazzling light Throughout the Twelve Hours of the Night.”

“...Seriously?” the Doctor asked when she finished, his voice sour. “We’re standing in the middle of the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities and you’re subjecting me to Ashbless of all people?”

Clara laughed. “You say ‘The Twelve Hours of the Night’ and my mind spits out that poem. I studied English literature at university, it’s a reflex, I can’t help it.”

“You know, I’m not convinced he actually knew the first thing about Egypt, much less the Amduat. Most of the rest of that poem is complete gibberish.”

“He did live here in Cairo for a time,” she said reasonably.

The Doctor sighed in exasperation. “It’s two minutes ‘til nine,” he said. “Are we going to stand here and debate nineteenth century poets of questionable literary value, or can we enjoy the moment?”

Laughing again, she turned her head and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. “Yes, let’s just enjoy the moment. Who else gets to celebrate their hundredth anniversary, after all?”

“Technically that’s not for another two years yet. And we’d have to go to Glasgow,” he added, and Clara knew without looking at him that he was making a face at the thought.

“Our wedding anniversary, sure. But I meant the anniversary of when I fell in love with you.”

The Doctor was quiet for a moment. “You think it was that night?” he asked softly.

“I know it was,” she answered in a similar tone, squeezing his hands where they were clasped low on her stomach. “I wouldn’t have followed you to Thebes otherwise. It just took me a while to put the word to the feeling.”

“You were — what was the phrase you used? — an intriguing stranger for me that night. But when you showed up at the dig site, that’s when I knew.” He took a deep breath and sighed it out, stirring strands of her hair. “I also knew you were less than half my age, far too beautiful for the likes of me even if you hadn’t been, and extremely unlikely to return my feelings.”

“And how’d that work out for you?” she asked playfully.

“Quite well, as fate would have it,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his tone.

Before she could reply, she felt him go rigid behind her, then sway in an alarming way. “Are you alright?” she asked, concerned.

“Bit lightheaded all of a sudden,” he said. “I think I ought to sit.”

She helped him to a bench at the back of the room, grateful that his hand remained solid in hers. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Possible explanations crowded her mind for why a ghost might feel lightheaded, none of them good.

“What is it?” she asked him, worry twisting her gut.

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice distant. “I feel strange...”

Clara knelt in front of him looking up at his face, so familiar and beloved, now alarmingly pale and drawn. Somewhere in the distance she could hear an announcement, repeated in multiple languages, that it was nine p.m. and the museum was closing. She ignored it and focused on the Doctor, and on her fear that something had just gone terribly wrong. There was a sudden knot in her stomach, a growing dread that this happy semblance of a life they’d managed to build together the last six and a half years couldn’t possibly last.

“Is this it?” she said, and she could hear the panic colouring her voice. “Have we run out of time? A hundred years exactly and I’ll have to lose you all over again?”

“My Clara,” the Doctor murmured, his low voice cutting through her frantic rambling. “All I ever wanted was more time with you...”

“No, you’re saying goodbye, don’t say goodbye!” she cried, cupping his face with one hand. The pain of that possibility rippled through her, the unimaginable thought of facing a future without him. “Don’t go. Stay with me,” she said desperately. “You promised. You promised you would stay.”

He found her gaze, his eyes red-rimmed as tears began to form. “Clara.”

“Everything you’re about to say, I already know,” she told him before he could say anything else, afraid that at any second, he would fade out of existence right in front of her. “I’ve always known. If this is it, if this is all the time we get—” Her voice cracked, her tears overwhelming her, and she shook her head. “Until the stars all burn from the sky, that’s how long you’re stuck with me. That’s how long I’ll love you. I will find you again someday. I promise.”

The Doctor took her hand from his face and kissed her knuckles tenderly, and she clung to the solidness of him, trying to commit it to memory one final time, in case this was the last moment of this life she had left with him. He had been abruptly stolen from her once before, on that horrible night in 1927, and suddenly the agony of that was fresh and new all over again, threatening to swallow her whole.

“I love you, my Clara,” he said despite her assurances that she already knew. He squeezed her fingers, and raised his other hand to wipe a tear from her face. “I’ll love you ‘til the end of the universe.” His gaze held hers, blue eyes flecked with green that she would never, ever forget. “And I know how much you like to be right,” he went on, his voice gentle. “But just this once... Do you think you could bear it if you were totally and completely wrong?”

She blinked up at him, tears catching in her lashes. “What?” she asked, uncomprehending, as he moved her hand to press flat against the left side of his chest. It took her a moment to understand, to register the strong and steady heartbeat under her palm, utterly strange and unexpected after so many years grown accustomed to the lack of it. She stared at her hand in disbelief, then raised her eyes to his face, realising that he no longer looked nearly so pale. “How?” she demanded.

He shrugged, smiling softly at her. “Honestly? I’ve no idea. Lucky thirteen, perhaps?” he suggested. “I can’t claim to understand it. But it feels so distinctly different from the last ninety-three years, I can’t really question it, either.”

“We get more time,” Clara breathed.

“We get more life,” he corrected. “A real second chance. Somehow, we’ve passed through the twelve hours of the night, and now the sun is rising again.”

She stared at him for a moment, her heart still stuttering in shock at the sudden reversal of their fortunes, then leaned up on her knees and kissed him soundly, reveling in the living warmth rolling off of him. Her living, breathing, very much not dead husband. The reality of it was better than anything she could have wished for, and she clung to him, hardly believing what had just happened.

“Sir, ma’am?” called an unfamiliar voice as they broke apart. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but it’s after nine p.m. and the museum is closing.”

“Quite alright,” the Doctor replied, his gaze never leaving Clara’s face. “It’s time we were getting home, anyway.”

Chapter 8: The Temple

#Whouffaldi #Twelve/Clara #Clara Oswald/Twelfth Doctor #Clara and the Doctor #Doctor Who #Doctor Who fanfic #This Isn't A Ghost Story #This Isn't A Ghost Story chapters #available on AO3 under the same title and username #please comment and reblog!

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desktopdust · 4 years ago

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Scrapped Shooting Star Sonia Ideas

After over five years of work, the Shooting Star Sonia series is officially over. Initially I had ideas for it to run a bit longer, but after experiencing some burnout while writing Red Joker I felt it would be best to wrap things up in Event Horizon. Of course, once I get an idea I have a compulsive need to talk about it, so detailed here are my original plans for anyone who might be curious.

Event Horizon itself didn’t change all that much. Information would still be provided about the MBN cores, though perhaps not quite everything; Sirius would have had the xarium rather than Blitzar, so there’d be no Rogue Xa yet and Solo would take the metal back at the end. Naturally, the ending is where the biggest change occurred: originally, someone from Planet XM would express interest in continuing to have Sonia and friends test the Meteor Breaker Numbers, and give them one year to prepare before the experiments begin in earnest. How ominous! Everyone would realize they need to get stronger, and to facilitate that, Sonia would use the EM Compatibility Tuner to interface with the Rosetta Compiler, becoming the new Administrator of the Black Hole Server.

Next thing I wanted to do was actually a super short side story, the obligatory Boktai crossover. More specifically Boktai DS/Lunar Knights, since that’s the one that did a crossover with SF1. Though I never did get into Boktai proper, I always found it neat that Battle Network and Star Force had these ongoing crossovers, and I wanted to keep it going. It was a very basic idea: Sabata ends up in the SF universe and gets possessed by an FM-ian (I believe I was thinking Vulpecula?), so Django follows and teams up with Sonia to stop him. No one would be showing off their new powers here, it’d be too soon for that, but there’d probably be hints.

The main event would’ve been Shooting Star Sonia 4: Rosetta Orbit. (A Rosetta orbit occurs when an object is moving fast enough to not be sucked into a black hole, but not fast enough to entirely escape its pull.) A year has passed, and so Planet XM begins dispatching a series of Meteor Breaker Numbers for Sonia to fight. I thought the major bosses all being on par with previous final bosses would be a cool way to raise the stakes, and I went with two themes when designing them: the seasons of the year, and other Mega Man series. For instance, the first MBN to appear would have been Vernal Ronin, a skeletal samurai robot meant to evoke Mega Man Legends (it’d look Reaverbot-esque, it’d been observing the heroes from the moon for some time now) and spring (“vernal” means spring, samurai are associated with cherry blossoms which only bloom in spring). I also wanted each MBN to be accompanied by an XM-ian who had some sort of reference to the Roll of the respective Mega Man series, though I had done less work on that. (Vernal Ronin would have been overseen by Cophin, an excitable engineer.) The other MBNs were Estival Rampart (summer, ZX), Autumnal Specter (autumn, Zero), and Brumal Transgressor (winter, X), with a recurring boss in the form of an XM-ian named Aeim who fought by operating a separate entity named Solstice_Harbinger.XM (EXE). Ultimately, the gang heads to Planet XM to find the newest MBN, the Equinox, which has been enhanced with all the data gathered over the course of the story and resembles the Yellow Devil from Classic.

On to transformations, Solo would obviously unveil Rogue Xa at this point, and I liked the idea of Geo working with the Sages of AM and WAZA to merge the Star Forces into a single, absurdly powerful form inspired visually by the unused concept art for an Angel Tribe On. With Geo and Sonia no longer needing the Ace and Joker Programs, I thought it would make sense to pass them on--have Bud take the Joker Program and Luna take the Ace Program. Sad to say I never got to the point of designing these forms, but I think it would’ve been fun. Also, I was contemplating the idea of Zack operating Magnes similar to a Net Navi, probably also developing a way for him to enter a controlled version of his Spade Magnes form; I wanted him to be involved and this seemed like an easy way to do it. There was also the possibility of Jack wanting to help and becoming a new iteration of Acid Ace, but I didn’t come to a decision on that. Other than that...I think Shepar was also going to have a way to temporarily take on the form of Chalice Libra? Everyone else was kind of on their own.

Now then, Sonia...as I said, she’d be drawing power from the Black Hole Server, which is powered by Adha. The last time she used this energy to transform was when she held the OOPArts, and I wanted to tie back into that. So, similarly to then, Sonia would draw on the Black Hole Server using the EM Compatibility Tuner, and then use the power of her Brother Bands to get it under control. These forms, called Orbits, would change her appearance and abilities to be similar to the Wave Form of the specific Brother she’s calling on at the time, probably with some design elements from Sirius thrown in. I wanted one for each element and was planning Luna Orbit, Bud Orbit, and Claude Orbit...but was at a loss for an Elec form. Since Gemini didn’t stick around I didn’t think giving her a Pat Orbit would be a good idea, and Couronne doesn’t have a Hunter and thus can’t make a formal Brother Band. I could’ve ignored that restriction, or found a way to justify her Band with Zack giving her a Magnes-based form, but nothing was ever decided on. However, just like with the OOPArts, this power would have sometimes run wild, causing Sonia to enter a berserk state and forcing one of her allies to hit her with her elemental weakness to shock her out of the form. For this reason, she would exclusively stick to forms that have elements...until the final boss. The Equinox would adapt throughout the fight and develop ways to counter all four elements, so with no choice, Sonia would use Geo Orbit to get a form combining Mega Man’s powers with her own, defeating the Equinox and saving the day. Then, she goes berserk. Her friends would find a way to calm her down eventually, of course, but this would sort of make Sonia the true final boss and I thought that was kinda neat.

So, with the pinnacle of the MBN Program destroyed, the XM-ians would be kind of freaking out--here’s where we’d get the full story of the origin of the program, and how it was originally meant to protect Planet XM in case a certain angry god ever showed up. Sonia being Sonia, she’d say that if anything happens, she’ll protect them. The XM-ians are moved by her kindness, and decide that maybe they should stop building war machines after all. After that, there were two more small things I wanted to do, either as two short stories (4.5 and 4.55, I think?) or as two Epilogues for RO. Firstly, that thing Planet XM is so afraid of would show up, and what do you know, it’s Duo.EXE! When I was planning for Red Joker I remembered how, leading up to SF3’s release, there were a bunch of theories that Meteor G had some connection to Duo, and I wanted to do something with that. The ultimate story then (and this holds true to an extent for the final product as well) is that Duo’s violence in the name of “justice” only spread pain and fear, which led to the XM-ians developing the MBN cores to fight against him, which only led to more pain and fear through their own actions as well as through the cores ending up in others’ hands. It’s an ongoing cycle of violence that is only broken when Sonia steps in to convince people to try a peaceful solution. Capping it off with Sonia the idealist versus Duo the extremist, probably resulting in Sonia helping Duo to grow beyond his programming and be more productive than destructive, seemed like a fitting, fun way to go. After that, I just wanted to have one last fight between Sonia and Solo--Geo Orbit Harp Note vs Rogue Xa in deep space to finally settle their rivalry! I didn’t decide a result, but it definitely would’ve involved Solo properly opening up and telling Sonia he respects her and all that.

(Also a very specific joke I wanted to use in RO and couldn’t find a good place to integrate into this post: when the head of the MBN Program is explaining it to Sonia, she’d say they still have MBN-001 through 008 on display, but only have records for MBN-010 and up. Sonia asks about MBN-009, and her guide scowls and says “We don’t talk about number 9.” You know, referencing the other Mega Man.)

(And, there is one other idea I had, a spin-off to shift to after resolving the history of the MBN cores, but it’s detached enough that I think I can turn it into a standalone story in the future so I want to hold onto it for now. Probably best I take a break from writing Star Force for the time being, but I really like the character designs I thought up for this one, so one day, I hope to put them to use.)

Once again, I want to thank you all for your interest in Shooting Star Sonia--I hope I was able to entertain you! It was a bit rocky at times, but in the end, I’m glad I embarked on this journey, and I’m eager to get to work on a new one. Until next time.

#Shooting Star Sonia

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mandarinastronaut · 6 years ago

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Homoromantic subtext in ‘The Goldfinch’

The Goldfinch is a novel written by Donna Tartt, published in 2013. It follows the characters Theodore Decker and Boris Pavlikovsky. The relationship between the two is a bit controversial. Literary critics have completely ignored the implications of a romance.

Let’s start with Theo’s toxic masculinity and internalized homophobia. Since the Tumblr user @borispav has already made an excellent analysis regarding the subject, I’m going to quote them.

”…Internalized homophobia is a fear and aversion toward homosexuality that is felt by a member of said sexuality. It’s an inclination toward projection, a way of securing confidence and self-image (two things which are threatened both systematically and socially) by registering one’s own sexual identity as a flaw in other people.

Toxic masculinity (or hegemonic masculinity) is a series of behaviors and traits found in men who have been molded by the ideologies of patriarchy. This mode of thinking presents a set of standards and conventions which men are expected to both adhere to and promote interpersonally.

When it comes to men, the ultimate goal—in both these cases— is to embody the widely advertised image of what is considered to be a ‘normal’ or ‘average’ man. This man is able-bodied and strong (both physically and mentally). This man fulfills the roles expected of his gender. He is ‘masculine’ in that he does not cry nor outwardly express any emotions outside of anger and lust. As a child he is sociable and sporty. He has many friends and does not struggle with fitting in. As a teen he is rowdy and full of life, armed to the teeth with a ‘healthy’ sex drive; the ultimate manifestation of the phrase “boys will be boys”. As an adult he is married and financially stable. He is on his way to achieving the American Dream: a white picket fence, 2.5 kids, and a wife that he feels responsible for protecting. He is straight and always has been.”

”Naturally interwoven amongst the pillars of toxic masculinity sits homophobia and its internalized counterpart. Heterosexuality, after all, is a core part of being a ‘normal’ male. Any other errant attraction is therefore meant to be deftly identified and expunged.

Given the sexual nature several of Theo’s fears toward masculinity take on, I believe it is more than safe to assume that he struggles with accepting and acknowledging his own sexuality (whether it be bisexuality or homosexuality, I don’t have a definite stance) as it is at odds with what has been presented as ‘normal’ male behavior.

Sexuality very nearly serves as an antagonist in this novel. It’s depicted as an emotionally draining entity, a wildness, a physical allure, tangible threat, and elusive dream. Theo is almost always at war with it—a sort of subplot to the story that mainly reveals itself in behavior and attitude, rather than direct dialogue or thought.

Sometimes the terror Theo harbors toward homosexuality (and, at its core, his own sexuality) is visceral enough to manifest itself as a palpable real-life danger. For example, aside from being verbally and emotionally abused by kids at school, Theo is also able to recall an instance where several boys held him down and attempted to sodomize him with a stick of deodorant (615). This memory, like the other, is mentioned in a passing, blasé, way. However, the fact that Theo remembers it at all as an adult—and in enough detail to recall the exact names of his aggressors— speaks to the experience’s traumatic weight.

In a similar vein, we have Theo’s negative re-entry into New York: the two different adult men who were implied child molesters (who cornered Theo and physically chased him down the street) serving as more literal manifestations of his own homophobia (404-409). This is the fear, and false pretense, that gay men are ‘perverts’ or ‘child molesters’ brought to life. It’s Theo’s repressed sexuality taunting and confronting him in a brutal, nightmarish, form; an expected effect of having been taught that a part of his identity is inherently ‘bad’ and unremovable.

This, and the bullying incident, are two prime examples of a fairly common literary technique used in which a character’s strongest fears or desires are made physical, rather than just emotional. Such a device works to symbolize/convey their fervency, demonstrate just how pressing and real they are to the afflicted character.”

A few examples of Theo’s internalized homophobia:

He can’t tell his doormen he’s going to miss them, because he thinks it would sound ”gay”. (238)

He feels uncomfortable in the cab because the driver saw Boris kissing him. (396)

He’s embarrassed to be seen with Popper because the breed is seen as ”feminine ” or “gay”. (402)

He’s distraught when Boris asks if he’s Hobie’s partner. (615)

“As for the internalized homophobia, it’s as ever-present as ever in his adulthood. In fact, I think it actually might even be morepronounced and focused than it was in his youth, when his fears primarily manifested themselves in vague and ambiguous ways. As an adult, his aversion is blunt and easy to identify. He graduates from steering clear of things that might insinuate homosexuality, to steering clear of gay men almost altogether. He’s able to acknowledge that they tend to make him uncomfortable, but in terms of trying to understand or mediate on why this is so, little is done. Instead he deems it suffice to drop in a few cursory sentences here and there whilst on the subject of something else, leaving it at that. No bigger picture is addressed, and no critical issue is implied.

For example, what we get are brief and loaded anecdotes like the following:

“I’d inherited my mother’s light-colored eyes, which short of sunglasses at gallery openings made it pretty much impossible to hide pinned pupils—not that anybody in Hobie’s crowd seemed to notice, except (sometimes) a few of the younger, more with-it gay guys— ‘You’re a bad boy,’ the bodybuilder boyfriend of a client had whispered into my ear at a formal dinner, freaking me out thoroughly. And I dreaded going up to the Accounts department at one of the auction houses because one of the guys there—older, British, an addict himself—was always hitting on me.” (472)

The sheer weariness and disdain with which he views threats to his heterosexuality is palpable here. There’s something almost sinister and deceptive about the way he chooses to portray these scenarios, something nightmarish in the way both men seem to be implicitly taunting him, confronting or incriminating him with the knowledge of a secret he pretends not to know. Both cases are clearly sources of great distress to him, as he feels the need to bring them up in context of something that didn’t exactly need the reference. It’s all fine and good that he mentions the "younger gay guys” noticing his pinned pupils, since the topic of thought was drugs, but then to go off and suddenly engage in the quotation of very specific dialogue (“you’re a bad boy”), and the discussion of very specific fears (being hit on by a guy), suggests that there is some deeper trauma demanding acknowledgment at the root. Theo is bothered by this. He is tormented by this. He uses the word dread (dread!!) to try and convey just how much he does not want to be in the same vicinity as someone who may act upon the assumption that he’s gay. (He wants us to assume that’s only because he’s confidently straight and doesn’t want the attention, but we know, in truth, that it’s because he’s both afraid and enraged at someone knowing and confronting him with such an unbidden part of himself).

Either way, it’s clear that he’s aware of the irrational severity of these fears, otherwise he wouldn’t have brought them up of his own volition or chosen to detail the day-to-day effects of their disproportionally crippling nature (i.e. him now despairing a certain department of his work environment). So yes, at some subconscious level, he knows that this isn’t normal, that he is stunted, emotionally, in some way. However, as I said before, he doesn’t ever think about why this is. He doesn’t try to find the problem, or even allude to there possibly being some small discrepancy in the way he’s always perceived his sexual identity. His aversion toward gay men simply remains a ‘mystery issue’, something of obvious weight that Theo wants us to feel, but not know. (Though, we know what it is anyway.)

And as if all this wasn’t obvious enough, we also get the very particular way in which Boris is framed in reference to Kitsey. He reenters Theo’s life right as Theo’s in a crisis over her, the engagement, and the fact that he’s not in love. And I mean this literally; Theo runs into Boris at St. Marks because he’d been on a walk in efforts to find ease of mind, a refuge from the daunting prospect of upcoming marriage (525). What he does find is Boris. Boris, who then, briefly, assumes the role of a hero— the knight in shining armor who’s come to sweep Theo up and away from the worldly snares of expectation and social-rule. This image is only further enforced when Boris comes billowing into his life again at the engagement party, graciously saving him from what (to Theo) was a downright nightmarish scenario. “Let’s get out of here,” is what Boris implores of him, leading them both to the door excitedly (635). Theo’s immediate response is to recognize that this is what he’s been unknowingly hoping this entire time, that Boris’ plea to run away from the engagement party with him is the “only thing that has made sense” to him all night (635). This is the ever-warring sides of illusion and reality at direct confrontation with each other. Choosing to stay at the party would imply that he has an unwavering loyalty to Kitsey (as in to heterosexuality/convention), while choosing to leave would imply that there are other, more genuine, desires drawing him away to something else at heart (his love for Boris, his lust for that wild edge; life without restraint and rule).

Theo chooses to leave. Or, I should probably say, he has no choice but to leave. When given such an enchanting window of escape, at such a precise moment of emotional distress and internal turmoil, it is impossible to resist. Of course his instinct would be to leave with Boris, even without knowing the details of their destination or circumstance. There’s an innate trust and draw that has been built up inside him from their Vegas years; Boris knows the deepest parts of Theo inside and out, and there are little to no other people in his life that he is tied to like that, little to no people that would provide the same type of relief from social-performance and self-deception as Boris would. On instinct (on instinct) Theo is true to himself for once. He physically runs after the thing he prefers, the thing it is that he actually wants. However, I do emphasize ‘on instinct’ because this is certainly more of a one-time, impulsive, occurrence than it is anything else. In the end it’s still Kitsey who Theo deems worthy of a suicide-note, not Boris. It’s still Kitsey who, despite everything, he continues to remain on the fence about all the way through the end of the novel. So, yes, it’s evident that the instinct (to be honest with himself, to go after what he wants etc.) is there, that—even after all these years—it still remains strong enough to be acknowledged and acted upon. However, the pressures of compulsive heterosexuality and toxic masculinity have not lessened their grip either, and, in the end, they are the ones that win.”

(all of this was from the amazing @borispav ‘s blog, thank you for letting me quote you!)

The story is told in retrospect and therefore is completely dependent on memory. Well memory, as we all know, isn’t very reliable. You forget, remember something incorrectly, manipulate and so forth. It is also sort of implied that Theo’s been using all sorts of substances, from hard drugs to alcohol. On the pages 622-623 we find out that Theo’s a ‘black-out’ drunk (he passes out and forgets things). Boris brings up the painting which baffles Theo since he himself has shown it to Boris but completely forgotten about it. Just the fact that he’s forgotten something so insanely important and significant, makes it more than possible that there are other important things he’s forgotten about. Theo tells us that he’s written the book for his mother, and in the hopes that Pippa would read it one day. This makes him quite biased and sets up an agenda for him, therefore implying that he’s willing to manipulate the story to fit his purposes. And because he’s trying to convince everyone (mostly himself, but also the reader) that he’s in love with Pippa, it wouldn’t make much sense for him to write about the true feelings he has for Boris. Though it’s very clear that he doesn’t actually love her. He even says this on page 570;

”Worse: my love for Pippa was muddied-up below the waterline with my mother, with my mother’s death, with losing my mother and not being able to get her back. All that blind, infantile hunger to save and be saved, to repeat the past and make it different, had somehow attached itself, ravenously, to her. There was an instability in it, a sickness. I was seeing things that weren’t there. I was only one step away from some trailer park loner stalking a girl he’d spotted in the mall. For the truth of it was: Pippa and I saw each other maybe twice a year; we e-mailed and texted, though with no great regularity; when she was in town we loaned each other books and went to the movies; we were friends; nothing more. My hopes for a relationship with her where wholly unreal, whereas my ongoing misery, and frustration, were an all-too-horrible reality. Was groundless, hopeless, unrequited obsession any way to waste the rest of my life?”

Even if you were to interpret it differently (Theo actually being in love with her, or at least being sexually attracted to her) it still doesn’t overrule Theo’s love for Boris (Theo could be bi-, pan-, or polysexual etc.).

Now when talking about Boris’ internalized homophobia, it’s not as severe as Theo’s. He’s a lot more accepting and openminded. On page 314. Boris brings up homosexuality;

”…Old poofter?” he asked. I was taken aback. ”No,” I said swiftly, and then; ”I don’t know.” ”Doesn’t matter,” said Boris, offering me the jar. ”I’ve known some sweet olf poofters.” ”I don’t think he is,” I said uncertainly. Boris shrugged. ”Who cares? if he is good to you? None of us ever find enough kindness in the world, do we?“

It’s very clear that by bringing up homosexuality casually like this, he wants to hear how Theo feels about it. This dialogue also tells us that Boris is a lot more accepting than Theo, who’s shocked and troubled by the idea of Hobie being gay.

Boris doesn’t have trouble expressing his feelings, he often even exaggerates them.

Boris says he’s in love with Kotku even though he doesn’t know her (326)

Boris says that he ”loves” Kotku and that she’s ”the truestthing that has ever happened” to him (328).

Boris says that the 'fight’ he and Kotku had, was ”only out of love”, and that they realized ”how much they loved each other” (360).

Boris tells Theo how he and KT became ”so close” in one night, and how they ”opened up their hearts” for each other (602).

Boris says that Bobo was like a father to him (613).

Boris is telling Theo about his tattoo, and says this; ”…This is for Katya, love of my life. I loved her more than any woman I ever knew.” To which Theo responds with; ”You say that about everybody.” Theo’s comment proves that this is something Boris does all the time.

But with Theo, he can express himself only through action, rather than words. It’s important to bear this in mind whenever interpreting his actions.

Quoting the Tumblr user @queer-deckovskij ;

”…Part II of The Goldfinch Book contains the chapters Badr al-Dine and Wind, Sand and Stars, in which Boris and Theo meet, go on adventures, live a pair of year together, fight, love each other, then say goodbye. These 200 pages are introduced by a quote Donna put right before chapter 5, that comes from the poet Arthur Rimbaud and says,

When we are very strong, - who draws back? very gay*, - who cares for ridicule? When we are very bad, - what would they do with us?

So where do I start? This quote accurately depicts Boris’ and Theo’s friendship in a way that takes my breath away. It contains all the force and stubbornness and courage of the angry youth they represent. She couldn’t have picked a better quote to represent them. But that’s not all. The small poem doesn’t end here - Donna cut the second part of it, which says,

Deck yourself, dance, laugh. I could never throw Love out of the window.

Yes, the poem used to represent Theo and Boris’ relationship is a love poem. I think it’s really important the notion of who Arthur Rimbaud was. He lived in France during the 19th century and while still very young he had a homosexual affair with another poet, named Paul Verlaine; they ran off together and for quite some time they shared a really unhealthy and irregular life, mostly based on drugs and alcohol and dangerous experiences. Les Poètes maudits, yes? They lived in the same house for a few years and ended up splitting up in quite a violent way (Verlaine shot Rimbaud twice). Does this experience remind you of someone? A couple of guys who drank beer and did drugs like it was a packet of chips and a bottle of pepsi? Inserting that quote, Donna Tartt literally compared Theo and Boris to Rimbaud and Verlaine. Which means that, officially, Theo and Boris’s love was not a platonic one.

*I do not know if Donna inserted this translation or a more neutral one, like cheerful or jolly; the original French poem uses the word gai, which literal translates as gay.”

When Boris starts dating Kotku, Theo is forced to think about what his and Boris’ relationship was for the first time. Though, it’s already been implied earlier that Theo might have a crush on Boris.

Subtext of Theo’s attraction toward Boris;

He’s staring at Boris’ stomach (272).

He’s staring at Boris’ neck (284).

He’s staring at Boris who’s wearing nothing but Theo’s underwear (307).

He’s staring at Boris’ shirtless chest (308).

He’s staring at Boris’ lower abdomen (383).

Theo is jealous of Kotku, he’s even depicted as a pissed ‘house-wife’.

Page 327; ”…But what did bother me -a lot- was how Kotku (I’ll continue to call her by the name Boris gave her, since I can’t now remember her real name) had stepped in overnight and virtually assumed ownership of Boris. First he was busy on Friday night. Then it was the whole weekend–not just the night, but the day too. Pretty soon, it was Kotku this and Kotku that, and the next thing I knew, Popper and I were eating dinner and watching movies by ourselves.”

(Theo’s been depicted as a ‘house-wife’ before on page 277.)

Even though he’s feeling jealous and left behind, he still tries to convince himself and the reader that their relationship was nothing but platonic, that he doesn’t really care whether Boris has a girlfriend or not. Still, it isn’t so simple. He can’t find a right word to describe their relationship.

”…But who cared what crappy girl Boris liked? Weren’t we still friends? Best friends? Brothers practically? Then again: there was not exactly a word for Boris and me. Until Kotku came along, I had never thought too much about it.” (333)

If their relationship was really platonic, Boris having a girlfriend wouldn’t affect their “friendship” or “brotherhood” in the slightest.

Theo’s projecting into Boris because of his internalized homophobia. We find out that Theo doesn’t mind Boris showing physical affection, and that he even enjoys it (it’s the only thing that calms him down from his nightly terrors). This is something that he doesn’t want to admit. He’s constantly trying to convince the reader that there aren’t any stronger, possibly romantic, feelings attached. It’s actually quite comedic.

”The funny thing: I’d worried, if anything, that Boris was the one who was a little too affectionate, if affectionate is the right word. The first time he’d turned in bed and draped an arm over my waist, I lay there half-asleep for a moment, not knowing what to do: staring at my old socks on the floor, empty beer bottles, my paperbacked copy of The Red Badge of Courage. At last–embarrassed–I faked a yawn and tried to roll away, but instead he sighed and pulled me closer, with a sleepy, snuggling motion. Shh, Potter, he whispered, into the back of my neck. Is only me. It was weird. Was it weird? It was; and it wasn’t. I’d fallen back to sleep shortly after, lulled by his bitter, beery unwashed smell and his breath easy in my ear. I was aware I couldn’t explain it without making it sound like more than it was. On nights when I woke strangled with fear there he was, catching me when I started up terrified from the bed, pulling me back in the covers beside him, muttering in nonsense Polish, his voice throaty and strange with sleep. We’d drowse off in each other’s arms, listening to music from my iPod (Thelonious Monk, The Velvet Underground, music my mother had liked) and sometimes wake clutching each other like castaways or much younger children.” (335)

In the end, we finally find out that they’ve even been sexually intimate. Since this is something they’ve done regularly, it’s more than safe to say that they’re at least sexually attracted to each other. Still, Theo keeps projecting into Boris, saying that he’s the one ”who might have the wrong idea”.

“…And yet (this was the murky part, this was what bothered me) there had also been other, way more confusing and fucked-up nights, grappling around half-dressed, weak light from the bathroom and everything haloed and unstable without my glasses: hands on each other, rough and fast, kicked-over beers foaming on the carpet–fun and not that big of a deal when it as actually happening, more than worth it for the sharp gasp when my eyes rolled back and I forgot about everything; but when we woke the next morning stomach-down and groaning on opposite sides of the bed it receded into an incoherence of backlit flickers, choppy and poorly lit like some experimental film, theunfamiliar twist of Boris’s features fading from memory already and none of it with any more bearing on our actual lives than a dream. We never spoke of it; it wasn’t quite real; getting ready for school we threw shoes, splashed water at each other, chewed aspirin for our hangovers, laughed and joked around all the way to the bus stop. I knew people would think the wrong thing if they knew, I didn’t want anyone to find out and I knew Boris didn’t either, but all the same he seemed so completely untroubled by it that I was sure it was just a laugh, nothing to take too seriously or get worked up about. And yet, more than once, I had wondered if I should step up my nerve and say something: draw some kind of line, make things clear, just to make absolutely sure he didn’t have the wrong idea. But the moment had never come. Now there was no point in speaking up and being awkward about the whole thing, though I scarcely took comfort in the fact.” (335-336)

Boris feels troubled because his and Theo’s relationship has become so intimate. He’s not sure if Theo feels the same way about him, and that creates a lot of stress and confusion for him. He makes a subconscious decision to resolve the situation by jumping into an impulsive relationship with Kotku (there aren’t any strong feelings attached). The relationship is completely physical, (they’re sexually attracted to each other, that’s it) even though Boris tries to convince Theo it isn’t so. Soon after they start dating, they begin to argue like an old married couple. It even goes so far that Boris punches Kotku (in the face).

Then Theo’s dad dies, and Theo has to leave Vegas in order to avoid his worst nightmare; social workers. Tartt depicts the 'goodbye’ scene quite dramatically, starting it with Boris humming a song by The Velvet Underground called After Hours. The song is about, you guessed it, unwilling goodbyes, love etc. By inserting this song to the very start, Tartt creates the perfect atmosphere for the whole scene, implying that there are strong romantic feelings between the two. They’ve listened to the song together, and so, Boris tries to manipulate Theo into staying by humming it.

”…Boris, I realized, was looking up at the sky and humming to himself, a line from one of my mother’s Velvet Underground songs: but if you close the door… the night could last forever…” (392)

The certainty of the situation starts to sink in on Theo, and he starts expressing his true feelings for the first and last time in the novel, in fact, he’s lost all control over himself. Boris realizes that Theo’s expressing his real feelings (probably predicting a confession) and since Boris has stolen the painting (something Theo’s completely unaware of) he’s accepted that he’s completely ruined any chances of continuing the relationship, (knowing that Theo would hate him after finding out) and just can’t bear to hear any more of what Theo’s saying. So, he interrupts Theo by kissing him on the lips. Now, besides the suggestive placement of the kiss, (not only is it in the goodbye scene but its right before Theo’s confession as well) the way Theo reacts to it makes it very clear that this is unusual behavior, and not something Boris has done before, (Theo wouldn’t have missed a chance to make the whole situation seem as platonic as possible, he would have tried to pull some bullshit like ”oh yeah this is something Boris does all the time lmao doesn’t mean anything”. And they know each other so well that they can communicate without words, so I think it’s safe to say that Theo would’ve known about it if it was usual behavior for Boris.) the kiss is clearly more than platonic, to say the least.

”…Really, you have to come. We can go to Brighton Beach—that’s where all the Russians hang out. Well, I’ve never been there. But the train goes there—it’s the last stop on the line. There’s a big Russian community, restaurants with smoked fish and sturgeon roe. My mother and I always talked about going out there to eat one day, this jeweler she worked with told her all the good places to go, but we never did. It’s supposed to be great. Also, I mean—I have money for school—you can go to my school. No—you totally can. I have a scholarship. Well, I did. But the guy said as long as the money in my fund was used for education—it could be anybody’s education. Not just mine. There’s more than enough for the both of us. Though, I mean, public school, the public schools are good in New York, I know people there, public school’s fine with me.” I was still babbling when Boris said: “Potter.” Before I could answer him he put both hands on my face and kissed me on the mouth. And while I stood blinking—it was over almost before I knew what had happened—he picked up Popper under the forelegs and kissed him too, in midair, smack on the tip of his nose. Then he handed him to me. ”Your car’s over there,” he said, giving him one last ruffle on the head. And—sure enough—when I turned, a town car was creeping up the other side of the street, surveying the addresses. We stood looking at each other—me breathing hard, completely stunned. ”Good luck,” said Boris. ”I won’t forget you.” then he patted Popper on the head. ”Bye, Popchyk. Look after him, will you?” he said to me.” (394-395)

When Theo gets in the cab, he acknowledges his feelings for Boris and confesses his love for him. This is the first and last time he does this (at least according to Theo’s narrative, which as we know, isn’t very reliable).

”Later—in the cab, and afterward—I would replay that moment, and marvel that I’d waved and walked away quite so casually. Why hadn’t I grabbed his arm and begged him one last time to get in the car, come on, fuck it Boris, just like skipping school, we’ll be eating breakfast over cornfields when the sun comes up? I knew him well enough to know that if you asked him the right way, at the right moment, he would do almost anything; and in the very act of turning away I knew he would have run after me and hopped in the car laughing if I’d asked one last time. But I didn’t. And, in truth, it was maybe better that I didn’t—I say that now, though it was something I regretted bitterly for a while. More than anything I was relieved that in my unfamiliar babbling-and-wanting-to-talk state I’d stopped myself from blurting the thing on the edge of my tongue, the thing I’d never said, even though it was something we both knew well enough without me saying it out loud to him in the street—which was, of course, I love you.” (395)

When they run into each other as adults, Theo starts commenting on Boris’ appearance almost immediately. This isn’t something Theo’s done before, his internalized homophobia won’t allow him to. Boris is the only male he depicts this way.

”…There he was, sliding in across from me, slingin the hair from his face in a gesture that brought the past ringing back. “I was just about to leave.” “Sorry.” Same dirty, charming smile. “Had something to do. Didn’t Myriam explain?” “No she didn’t.” “Well. Is not like I work in accounting office. Look,” He said leaning forward, palms on the table, “don’t be mad! Was not expecting to run into you! I came as quick as I could! Ran, practically!” He reached across with cupped hands and slapped me gently on the cheek. “My God! Such a long time it is! Glad to see you! You’re not glad to see me too?” He’d grown up to be good-looking. Even at his gawkiest and most pinched he’d always had a likable shrewdness about him, lively eyes and quick intelligence, but he’d lost that half-starved rawness and everything else had come together the right way.” (596)

Then we find out that Boris has been embittered this whole time because he ruined his and Theo’s relationship (Thinking that Theo holds a grudge for him because of the painting). So, Boris projects onto Theo. He brings up their sexual intimacy, and offends him;

”…why do I feel like you’re trying to change the subject?” ”Not trying to judge! It’s just—we did crazy things back then. Things I think maybe you don’t remember. No, no!” he said quickly, shaking his head, when he saw the look on my face. ”Not that. Although I will say, you are the only boy I have ever been in bed with!” My laugh spluttered out angrily, as if I’d coughed or choked on something. ”With that—” Boris leaned back disdainfully in his chair, pinched his nostrils shut—”pfah. I think it happens at that age sometimes. We were young, and needed girls. I think maybe you thought it was something else. But, no, wait” he said quickly, his expression changing—I’d scraped back my chair to go— ”wait,” he said again, catching my sleeve, “don’t, please, listen to what I’m trying to tell you, you don’t at all remember the night when we were watching Dr. No?” I was getting my coat from the back of my chair…” (622)

Theo is clearly hurt by Boris’ words, even though he doesn’t admit it.

As if all of this wasn’t already obvious enough, Tartt’s sprinkled all sorts of subtext all over the novel;

Theo takes extraordinary notice of the sex books his therapist has. Tartt is already, this early into the book, implying that sexuality might be a theme for Theo. (162)

During Theo’s and Boris’ first conversation, Theo asks Boris to say something in one of the multiple languages Boris speaks and he decides to say something quite suggestive, which is; ”fuck you up the ass”. (265)

Theo’s internalized homophobia is taunting him, he says he feels ”shameful”, ”worthless”, ”tainted” and ”wrong”, and that he doesn’t know the origin for these emotions. (440-441)

Theo thinks about Boris every day and everything reminds him of Boris. (465)

Theo still remembers Boris’ home phone number in Vegas and even uses the last digits of it for the combination padlock that’s securing the painting. (532)

Theo confesses that he has googled Boris in the past. (595)

”You know what I did in college?” I was telling him. ”I took Conversational Russian for a year. Totally because of you. I did really shitty in it, actually. Never got good enough to read it, you know, sit down with Eugene Onegin—you have to read it in Russian, they say, it doesn’t come through in translation. But—I thought of you so much! I used to remember little things you’d say—all sorts of things came back to me—oh, wow, listen, they’re playing 'Comfy in Nautica,’ do you remember that? Panda Bear! I totally forgot that album. Anyway. I wrote a term paper on The Idiot for my Russian Literature class—Russian Literature in translation—I mean, the whole time I was reading it I thought about you, up in my bedroom smoking my dad’s cigarettes. It was so much easier to keep track of the names if I imagined you saying them in my head … actually, it was like I heard the whole book in your voice! Back in Vegas you were reading The Idiot for like six months, remember? In Russian. For a long time it was all you did. Remember how for a long time you couldn’t go downstairs because of Xandra, I had to bring you food, it was like Anne Frank? Anyway, I read it in English, The Idiot, but I wanted to get there too, to that point, you know, where my Russian was good enough. But I never did.” (614-615)

Theo depicts Pippa by referring to Boris. (678)

Tartt has placed a character from one of her earlier novels The secret history, Francis Abernathy, a homosexual man who was forced by circumstance to marry a woman, in Theo’s engagement party as a parallel for him. (710)

”Only what is that thing? Why am I the way I am? Why do I care about all the wrong things, and nothing at all for the right ones? Or, to tip it another way: how can I see so clearly that everything I love or care about is illusion, and yet—for me, anyway—all that’s worth living for lies in that charm? A great sorrow, and one I am only beginning to understand: we don’t get to choose our own hearts. We can’t make ourselves want what’s good for us or what’s good for other people. We don’t get to choose the people we are. Because—isn’t it drilled into us constantly, from childhood on, an unquestioned platitude in the culture—? From Willian Blake to Lady Gaga, from Rousseau to Rumi to Tosca to Mister Rogers, it’s a curiously uniform message, accepted from high to low: when in doubt, what to do? How do we know what’s right for us? Every shrink every career counselor, every Disney princess knows the answer: ”Be yourself.” ”Follow your heart.” Only here’s what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can’t be trusted—? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours and regular medical check-ups, stable relationships and steady career advancement, the New York Times and brunch on Sunday, all with the promise of being somehow a better person? Or—like Boris—is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name? It’s not about outward appearances but inward significance. A grandeur in the world, but not of the world, a grandeur that the world doesn’t understand. That first glimpse of pure otherness, in whose presence you bloom out and out and out. A self one does not want. A heart one cannot help.” (852-853). Since the main themes of the novel are authenticity and unauthenticity (good and bad, right and wrong) it makes perfect sense to have sexuality be a subtheme.

Love restricts one’s personal life. Committing to something so uncertain and scary, as serious romantic relationships are, is impossible for Boris due to his traumatic childhood. This (aside from thinking he’s ruined their relatonship) is the reason why he’s stayed out of Theo’s life for all these years.

”…Boris laughed. “And you love her, yes. But not too much.” “Why do you say that?” “Because you are not mad, or wild, or grieving! You are not roaring out to choke her with your own bare hands! Which means your soul is not too mixed up with hers. And that is good. Here is my experience. Stay away from the ones you love too much. Those are the ones who will kill you. What you want to live and be happy in the world is a woman who has her own life and lets you have yours.” (667)

Later, in Amsterdam, during the shootout, Boris physically follows this ideology and his true feelings- he’s ready to die for Theo. Theo confessed his love verbally, this is Boris confessing his love in the way most natural to him, through action;

”…Again Boris moaned, as the guy yanked his hair once more, and from across the car threw me an unmistakable look—which I understood just as plainly as if he’d spoken the words aloud, an urgent and very specific cut of the eyes straight from our shoplifting days: run for it, Potter, go.” (760)

Can a Pulitzer prize-winning author write this blatant subtext accidentally? Is this just another case of cheap queerbaiting? It’s up to you to decide.

———————————————————————————————————–

A look at internalized homophobia and toxic masculinity as presented in the character of Theodore Decker; https://borispav.tumblr.com/post/179768610308/a-look-at-internalized-homophobia-and-toxic

by https://borispav.tumblr.com/

Post on Arthur Rimbaud’s poem; http://queer-deckovskij.tumblr.com/post/171833208225/so-very-important-detail-i-dont-know-if-any-of

by http://queer-deckovskij.tumblr.com/

All page numbers are from my copy of the book, meaning that I’ve changed the ones in the quotations from the original ones to my own.

I received technical writing help from a friend of mine, as I am dyslexic and have trouble expressing myself sometimes, who wants to stay anonymous, thank you anonymous!

#the goldfinch #boreo #theo decker #boris pavlikovsky #donna tartt #theodore decker #tgf #rin's analysis

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beesmygod · 6 years ago

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this is what riverdale is about (part 3)

part 1

part 2

first, i have to start this description of the first season by begging you to stay with me for all 3 seasons; the first season is hilariously quaint in hindsight to whatever the fuck i just watched in season 3. the first season does deal with some weirdly heavy subjects for a comic that was at one point about getting a malt down at the shop with your best girl (for example, a plot point in season 1 is a predatory teacher/student relationship) but the third season is freaked out on pcp comparatively. the descent into madness this show demonstrates as time goes on should act as a warning to all who desire to write fanfiction: there but for the grace of god goes YOU.

anyway, my approach to doing this is that i will describe each episode of the season briefly. in some episodes, nothing of major consequence happens. in some, i will describe interactions i found especially bizarre or accidentally funny or iconic. you may want to keep the list of characters handy but i will try to explain the new, incidental ones as they pop up.

an odd side note: you will notice many of the episode titles are taken from movie titles. “riverdale” LOVES making references to movies. i mean hell, so do i, but you will notice some of the references are............on the nose.

images are from the riverdale wiki

SEASON ONE (PART 1):

the river’s edge: jughead, as the series narrator, describes a july 4th boating incident that led to the death of jason blossom, cheryl’s twin brother. cheryl is found by some off-brand boy scouts on the riverbank looking like a fabulous drowned rat. when the town comes to gawk at the spectacle, betty’s mother is hella pumped at the idea of jason being dead because he broke up with betty’s sister, polly (betty’s mom is later revealed to be prejudiced against all redheads, including archie). jason’s body is not recovered.

veronica and her mother arrive at riverdale to stay in a 5 star hotel that inexplicably exists in this podunk little shithole of a town. they discuss her father’s recent arrest for various financial crimes and decide to get a burger. betty, across town, is thinking the same thing...but love is on her mind...

betty wants to confess her feelings to archie, who she watches dress from the house next door. he is huge and beefy, having worked on his dad’s construction site during the summer. betty on the other hand, organized a toni morrison release party (?!), which she describes to archie as they catch up over a burger. archie wants to make music now. music is the ONLY thing that gives his life meaning (spoilers: he only feels this way for about half a season), except for football. betty is about to confess her feelings but veronica busts the door open and ruins everything.

there is an insane scene here where veronica meets kevin at school the next day and “concludes” he’s gay using her powers of deduction and also the fact that he talked to her about a gay bar in town (i cannot believe the riverdale gay bar has never come up again wtf). based on this information alone, she wants to be best friends. great stuff.

archie tries to join the pussycats and they tell him to fuck right off. josie gets a weird monologue about her cat ears. archie makes weird eye contact with the music teacher at riverdale high, ms. grundy (who is like 22 years old and hot now, instead of ancient and withered), who is revealed to have had a VERY uncomfortable sexual relationship with him. the visual coding of the flashback scene is bananas; she’s wearing the heart-shaped pink “lolita” glasses from the kubrick movie.

through a flashback scene, it is revealed that one of archie and grundy’s sexual trysts that took place on the date and location jason died was interrupted by a gunshot. meanwhile, betty and veronica gay kiss to try to get on the cheerleading team but cheryl is unimpressed, commenting that it is SO 1990s. nevertheless, they make the team.

at the semi-formal, betty confesses to archie, who reacts like she handed him a dead fish wrapped in newspaper. cheryl thinks this is hella funny and sets up a scenario at her after party that gets veronica and archie together for a round of “7 minutes in heaven”. betty flees. jughead writes his novel in pop tate’s chocklit shoppe. kevin and moose (a closeted football player) try to fuck down by the murder river but the mood is ruined by jason’s body floating to the shore.

OKAY that’s the longest one. we had to establish a bunch of shit. stick with me now.

a touch of evil: archie confronts grundy about the gunshot they heard, now that it is certain that jason was killed by a gunshot to the head. betty and archie make up and become friends again, beginning the cycle of riverdale drama that wraps itself up in less than 12 hours. cheryl uses the school p.a. system to demand the killer reveal himself so they can put him in the chair. alice cooper pays off the mortician for information about jason’s corpse so she can run an expose about the murder in the front page of the local newspaper. jughead witnesses archie sharing a way too intimate hug with grundy. veronica’s mom works at pop tate’s and meets archie for the first time at work, commenting on how handsome he is, like his father. archie andrews is certified milf-bait for whatever reason.

betty invites cheryl to her house for mani-pedis to spite veronica. cheryl uses the opportunity to accuse betty’s sister of killing jason. betty responds by telling cheryl to get out or she’ll fucking kill her. normal stuff. meanwhile, jughead confronts archie about grundy and finds out pretty much everything, from the inappropriate relationship to the gunshot. he urges archie to go to the cops but archie won’t do it because *~what he and grundy has is sPeCiAl~*. jughead tells archie he’s a fucking idiot and brushes off archie’s attempts to threaten him.

betty asks about her sister, who is revealed to be in a mental hospital in a catatonic state as a result of the relationship breakdown between her and jason.

jughead gets brutally owned by jocks who call him “donnie darko” and “suicide squad” while implying he fucked jason’s corpse. archie defends jughead and they make up right before the pep rally. the heartless bastards at riverdale high inexplicably gave archie jason’s football jersey instead of retiring it and cheryl has a real meltdown about her brother’s death, fleeing into the girl’s locker room to sob her heart out. she confesses to veronica, the only person who goes to comfort her, that jason was supposed to come back.

the next day, the cops arrest cheryl in the middle of class and handcuff her. it turns out jason didn’t die july 4th, but a week after.

body double: despite confessing to being guilty at the end of the last ep, cheryl starts this ep by saying “let me clarify what i meant by guilty” which is the first of many times riverdale immediately recons its own writing for no apparent reason. cheryl confesses she lied about what happened the day of his disappearance; they weren’t simply having a little boat ride, but trying to facilitate jason’s escape to a farm away from the clutches of his family. he was supposed to contact cheryl once he got somewhere safe, but he didn’t. meanwhile, betty’s mom apparently didn’t get the “not guilty” memo and publishes a sensational article about jason accusing cheryl of being the murderer. through this, it is revealed to the audience that betty’s mom and dad own and operate the local newspaper. just them. no one else. cool.

archie finally tells the sheriff about the gunshot but lies about grundy’s existence. kevin comments offhandedly that everyone should re-watch “making a murderer” on netflix, making this what i think is the first plug of an irl property/brand in the show. from here on out they get more brazen and batshit. veronica reveals she has a date with the football coach’s son, chuck clayton, but everyone warns her he’s a player. betty re-opens the school newspaper to compete with her parents and get the REAL story out. she hires jughead to interview the kids who found cheryl the day jason disappeared.

okay, dear readers, please listen to me attempt to explain the next part of this episode. veronica goes on a chaste date with chuck which ends in some light making out. the next day, it is all over social media that chuck gave her a “sticky maple” which is, as far as i can tell, some maple syrup photoshopped onto a photo of her to replicate cum. this is impossible to explain via text, so please look at this helpful screencap.

the theme of this episode suddenly sidewinds from “we must solve jasons murder” to “we must avenge veronica being slut-shamed”. they consider going to the authorities briefly but decide to storm into the boys locker room which accomplishes nothing. this story line is briefly put on hold so jughead can unsuccessfully interview some not-boy scouts and cheryl can repay archie’s attempt to clear her name by setting him up with music lessons from josie and the pussycats.

ethel muggs, a slightly more unpopular and more dowdy girl who pops up from time to time in the plot over the course of the three seasons, reveals that she is one of chuck’s victims too. she tells of a “playbook” kept by chuck that details sex acts the football team engages in (presumably with girls and not each other).

jughead successfully squeezes a not-boy scout into revealing that the scoutmaster (who is like a 15 year old boy) fired the shot everyone heard at the river, but he was just practicing on targets he set up. the scoutmaster is a hardcore survivalist (a fact that becomes vital in later seasons). so ultimately the gunshot meant nothing.

archie offers to write songs for the pussycats and josie tells him to shut the fuck up, white boy.

kevin, betty, veronica and ethel break into the school after hours to find the playbook. cheryl inexplicably shows up wearing red thigh high boots to help them. no one except for me, the audience, is excited about this development. the book they find reveals that jason had a sexual relationship with betty’s sister, implying a sort of pump and dump situation between the two. betty goes apeshit and pledges revenge against chuck.

okay. just. stay with me now.

betty puts on red lipstick and somehow successfully convinces chuck to have sex with her at ethel’s house while ethel and her parents are out of town. when chuck arrives, veronica is there, claiming that she and betty want to “share” chuck. i cannot believe he falls for this for real. betty then comes out wearing a uma thurman “pulp fiction” wig and lingerie.

betty then roofies chuck, who wakes up handcuffed to the hot tub. while veronica records the scene, betty threatens to boil him alive in the hot tub and waterboards him with maple syrup unless he confesses to his crimes, the crimes of jason and for “destroying her”. after torturing him for an uncomfortable amount of time, they take their evidence to the principal. why they didn’t just do this in the first place i’ll never know. anyway chuck leaves the school and cheryl says, out loud, “#justiceforethel”.

meanwhile, archie gets a soundproof place in the garage to practice his music after spending the episode arguing with his dad. dilton doiley, the scoutmaster, tells jughead and betty he saw grundy’s car at the river the day of jason disappearance. episode END.

this turned out to be so much longer than i thought it would be, so i’m splitting it here. these are so long im sorry. god bless you and im sorry you had to read this. we still have like 10 eps left. i didnt know it would be like this but i need you to understand and believe how insane this series is.

thanks for readin

#riverdale

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creeped-out-ranked · 5 years ago

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Creeped Out is a horror anthology series shown on CBBC in the UK and available on Netflix elsewhere. It’s an excellent show, fun for kids with loads of crossover appeal for adults. But the big entertainment sites tend not to cover it, and I haven't been able to find a definitive ranking of all the episodes anywhere. So I decided to create my own, because why not?! This list includes season 1 and season 2; I’ll add further episodes as they’re shown.

Before we get into this: there are some spoilers in here. I’ve tried to keep them to a minimum but sometimes, to describe what's good (or bad) about an episode, I need to discuss elements of the plot.

Every episode of Creeped Out, ranked from best to worst

1. ‘Slapstick’ (Season 1, Episode 1)

The first episode of a series is rarely the best, but Creeped Out bucks the trend—‘Slapstick’ hasn’t yet been bettered. It’s the perfect combination of cozy and creepy, with a quintessentially British setting (a seaside town complete with Punch & Judy shows), a puppet antagonist who’s somewhere between unnerving and amusing, and a relatable main character. Even the score is the best of the bunch: its sinister take on fairground music really adds to the atmosphere. The plot—Jessie wishes her parents were ‘normal’, and lives to regret it—is compelling, and in contrast to some of the weaker episodes, you actually understand why the characters do the things they do (even the bully is given a bit of a backstory). ‘Slapstick’ is a gem, and more than any other episode, it stands up to repeated rewatches.

2. ‘Trolled’ (Season 1, Episode 3)

Sam leads a double life: he’s secretly NoFace, an online troll who often targets his closest friends. When he ignores a message warning him to stop trolling, things start to go very wrong. This episode is set in the plush surroundings of a boarding school (one of Creeped Out’s more notable backdrops) and the contrast between Sam’s environment and his online life is both palpable and believable. The dynamic between Sam, Fitzy and Naini is established very effectively—you really feel Sam has something to lose. Extra points for the properly bleak ending, too.

3. ‘Kindlesticks’ (Season 1, Episode 9)

This episode is a fan favourite, and it’s not difficult to see why. ‘Kindlesticks’ came out of nowhere, landing in the middle of a few mediocre episodes, and doesn’t seem at first glance to have the most exciting setup: a bad babysitter getting her comeuppance. Yet you’ll likely find that the tale of Esme, her charge Ashley and his imaginary friend Kindlesticks will drag you in, spit you out and leave you reeling. It’s a simple idea executed perfectly, with what is undoubtedly Creeped Out’s best delivery of a twist. Seriously, I didn’t see that coming at all.

4. ‘Splinta Claws’ (Season 2, Episode 10)

Admittedly, it isn’t difficult to make a Christmas episode good—add lots of sparkly decorations and a bit of ‘Carol of the Bells’ and you’ve already nailed the atmosphere. ‘Splinta Claws’, in which two boys get trapped in a department store along with a possessed animatronic Santa, builds on that to create an inspired take on PG-13 seasonal horror. It’s the self-aware script that really makes this episode; the ‘frenemy’ relationship between anxious Mikey and street-smart Lawrence, plus the characters’ recognition that the slow-moving Santa isn’t that scary (despite its nightmare-fuel face). An effective combination of action, emotion and humour results in a spooky festive treat.

5. ‘Tilly Bone’ (Season 2, Episode 9)

Telling a story backwards is a bold move, and initially, it makes ‘Tilly Bone’ confusing. Some viewers might find themselves wanting to switch off as they wonder what the hell is going on. But stick with it, and a fascinating tale unfolds, with layers, details and clues to be picked apart, nods to classic horror, great performances (especially Alice Franziska Woodhouse as the disquieting Junebug) and some of the series’ most original and surprising ideas. It’s formally innovative, daring and altogether one of the most impressive pieces of work Creeped Out has yet produced.

6. ‘Marti’ (Season 1, Episode 4)

Kim is initially delighted when her new phone’s AI helps her to become more popular, but things take a turn for the sinister when ‘he’ claims to be in love with her. ‘Marti’ cleverly uses this premise as a kid-appropriate way to explore themes of coercive control and abusive relationships. I have a feeling this episode may have been inspired by the 2016 movie Bedeviled—there are lots of similarities, right down to Marti’s voice—and it says a lot that in 25 minutes it crafts a better, more meaningful story than a full-length horror movie for adults was able to manage. Often unfairly slept on, ‘Marti’ is the talented underdog of the series.

7. ‘Takedown’ (Season 2, Episode 8)

‘Takedown’ is intriguing because it departs completely from the series’ typical aesthetic—there's lots of shakycam, a grainy feel to the cinematography, a muted colour palette. It’s shot more like an indie film than an episode of a kids’ show. It focuses on Alexa, the only girl on her high school wrestling team, who uses a weird chain text to wish for more strength. Since this is Creeped Out, it’s no surprise that her ‘gift’ comes at a price. With its gritty feel and the authentic friendship between Alexa and Lucky (‘cheers to root beers’, anyone?), this episode is something really different, and all the more memorable for it.

8. ‘No Filter’ (Season 2, Episode 6)

Like ‘Trolled’, ‘No Filter’ is a thoroughly enjoyable example of what a series like this should be aiming for, which is essentially a junior version of a Twilight Zone episode. There’s a recognisable starting point—who hasn’t used filters or Facetune to make their selfies look better, and who bothers reading all the T&Cs?—and when Kiera’s eroded face is revealed, it’s one of the few moments in the series to create a genuine shock. Plus there’s a proper pantomime villain, just as it should be. The ending might be a little jumbled, but it’s entertaining enough that that can be forgiven.

9. ‘Cat Food’ (Season 1, Episode 2)

Happy-go-lucky prankster Stu pretends to be ill so he can skip school, but gets more than he bargained for when he discovers the elderly neighbour, Mrs McMurtle, is actually a shapeshifting monster. ‘Cat Food’ is a fun, comedic episode (the only one yet to make me laugh out loud) and, while there isn’t a great deal of substance to the story, it’s efficiently told and neatly resolved. Rhys Gannon is great as Stu and it’s just an all-round fun time.

10. ‘The Traveller’ (Season 1, Episode 11)

While the vast majority of Creeped Out episodes take place in a distinctly middle-class milieu, ‘The Traveller’ switches things up by focusing on Jodie and Brandon, troublemaking kids on an inner-city estate. They come across a device that can pause time, and it’s all fun and games until a blue-skinned man starts hunting them down. The plot is a bit more Doctor Who than your average episode, and the combination of urban setting and sci-fi story is surprisingly successful. There’s also an emotional gut-punch of a moment when Jodie finally understands the problems she’s been creating for her mum.

11. ‘The Call’ (Season 1, Episode 6)

‘The Call’ isn't one of the strongest stories in Creeped Out’s repertoire. An unpopular girl is drawn to an environmental activist and discovers she’s a siren, gaining powers into the bargain—interesting enough, but not enormously original, and inevitably a gateway to slightly tedious lecturing about plastic etc. It stands out mainly because of a stellar performance from Rebecca Hanssen, who reminds me of a young Olivia Colman. Hanssen really inhabits the character of Pearl, and shows how excellent acting can elevate an ordinary plot and script.

12. ‘The Many Place’ (Season 2, Episode 4)

With their holiday scuppered by torrential rain, three siblings wander a hotel and find themselves lost in a maze of realities. ‘The Many Place’ is designed as an homage to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, and spotting the references is part of the enjoyment here. The story takes advantage of the liminal, disconcerting nature of a large hotel to craft a series of alarmingly plausible terrors, and the ending features the best twist since ‘Kindlesticks’.

13. ‘One More Minute’ (Season 2, Episode 1)

‘One More Minute’ kicks off the second season with a pure hit of enjoyment that doesn’t take itself too seriously. When Jack can’t tear himself away from his favourite videogame, he finds time passing quickly—scarily quickly. While it may not be among the best, everything about this episode is solid: it’s (appropriately) well paced, the relationships are soundly fleshed out, and it’s all wrapped up well.

14. ‘Itchy’ (Season 2, Episode 2)

It may have one of the show's sillier premises—the villains are... head lice—but I have a soft spot for ‘Itchy’. Perhaps it’s the setting: a military academy on an English island feels fresh when you compare it to the many identikit homes and high schools in the series. Perhaps it’s the strong performance from Oliver Finnegan as protagonist Gabe. Either way, there’s something low-key charming about this episode.

15. ‘Side Show’ (Season 1, Episodes 12 and 13)

This two-part season finale is set in the early 20th century and centres on a troupe of circus performance whose ringmaster won’t allow them to venture beyond a magical barrier. Overall, ‘Side Show’ isn’t especially creepy; it’s more of a fantasy story that feels like it could have been its own separate series. The advantage of this is that there’s more space for character development and worldbuilding. The disadvantage is that it doesn’t truly feel like part of the Creeped Out universe.

16. ‘A Boy Called Red’ (Season 1, Episode 5)

Vincent and his dad aren't getting along, but when they go to stay at the latter’s childhood home, Vincent finds an unusual way to reconnect: via a time-travelling portal. The switches between past and present are handled admirably, and Boris Burnell Anderson is a standout as AJ. There’s a lot to like about ‘A Boy Called Red’; it just doesn’t stand out as especially memorable when compared to some of the stronger Creeped Out stories, perhaps because there’s no real antagonist.

17. ‘Bravery Badge’ (Season 1, Episode 7)

A troop of Girl Guides—sorry, ‘Hedgehog Rangers’—head into the woods for a camping trip. When the girls start falling into a strange trance, it’s up to a moody, reluctant Ranger to save the day. The setting here is promising, the campfire scene is a highlight, and the urban legend about the missing troop is a great touch. Unfortunately, the good stuff is undermined by questionable acting and a somewhat ridiculous supernatural menace. Though I will admit the singing is quite creepy.

18. ‘Shed No Fear’ (Season 1, Episode 10)

Set in the 1970s, with some decent period detail, this episode follows two boys as they battle a mysterious shadow-creature inhabiting an old shed. It’s cute to see Greg and Dave rekindle their friendship and tell the smarmy football captain to get lost, but the threat of the Shade is never particularly well-developed. The title also annoys me. Outside the context of this episode, nobody has ever uttered the phrase ‘shed no fear’. It isn’t even a good pun!

19. ‘The Unfortunate Five’ (Season 2, Episode 5)

Five kids in detention meet their match in a seemingly sweet, yoga-loving teacher who pits them against each other. Establishing five protagonists and two villains within the space of 25 minutes is a tall order, and it’s one this episode doesn't meet. ‘The Unfortunate Five’ has a good concept and also boasts one of the series’ goriest images (when Faye attacks Hawkins and blood spatters across the glass—I’m kind of surprised CBBC didn’t cut that). But the flimsy, unmemorable characters doom it to the lower reaches of this list.

20. ‘Only Child’ (Season 2, Episode 7)

This could have been great: the story of a girl being menaced by her demonic baby brother, while her parents are convinced she’s just jealous, has lots of potential. Yet ‘Only Child’ doesn't really work. The denouement is rushed and muddled (exactly how does Mia identify the link between the baby’s power and the feedback sound?) and the low-budget special effects don't help. It also suffers from being set entirely within the Tuthill family’s apartment, which looks like a cheaply decorated show home.

21. ‘Help’ (Season 2, Episode 3)

A very meh installment about a brother and sister who are overly reliant on their family’s Amazon Alexa-like virtual assistant. It’s basically a weaker version of ‘Marti’ with a much less impactful message. The siblings are barely fleshed out, and the episode shares with ‘Only Child’ a sterile-looking set that doesn’t resemble a real family home at all.

22. ‘Spaceman’ (Season 1, Episode 8)

If episodes like ‘Trolled’ and ‘No Filter’ represent what a show like Creeped Out should be, ‘Spaceman’ is exactly what it shouldn’t be. If ‘Cat Food’ proves how well humour can work within a scary story, ‘Spaceman’ shows exactly how it can go wrong. The tale of unlikely pals Spud and Thomas finding a crashed spaceship is by far the worst thing Creeped Out has come up with—it’s implausible, unfunny and not remotely creepy. Avoid.

#creeped out #creeped out ranked #creeped out episodes #creeped out episodes ranked #cbbc #netflix

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deniigi · 6 years ago

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Hello! Just about to sit down and read your newest fic, so excited about it! I had a question for you (you very well may have answered this already, so sorry in advance!), but do you have advice for writing? Advice in terms of getting start, plotting out stories, helping get the creative juices flowing? I have all these ideas but seem to lack the drive to get things written out. I know the best advice is to just write, but I'm having a horrible time starting. What do you do in those moments?

Hello my dear!

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. The lord has blessed me with a head cold and ruined all my plans of productivity for the day, so I can finally answer this ask! I’ll talk a little bit about both how to get started with a story and then some little things that help me motivate myself.

I have started a tag for writing advice here: http://deniigi.tumblr.com/tagged/writing-advice

This is going to be a long post, sorry mobile users.

I am going to preface all of this with the understanding that I am technically a professional writer in terms of like, a handful of ways, but I have absolutely zero training in creative writing, so take everything I say with a grain of salt!

So, I personally find that, on the whole, that psychological hurdle of getting started comes a lot from the anticipation of the kind of response a story will get (how many hits, how many comments, how many kudos) in addition to a bit of anxiety or fear over theloss of sustained interest in that story (by yourself and/or by your audience). I find that this can be alleviated by really, truly internalizing the understanding that you are allowed to write your work however you damn please, for whoever you damn please.

There will be work you write for others, and there will be work you write for yourself. Not all work needs to be published; sometimes, it is really nice to just write shit for yourself; it is a plus for humanity if you decide to share it with others, but you do not have to do that.

Furthermore, I would like to present you with this:

This is what my current folder for under fire looks like. And you might notice that there are almost always multiple drafts per chapter. Yes, I did in fact rewrite chapter four 5 fucking times, you bet your ass I did. And I’m not ashamed of it. I think the story is better for it. And that’s the important thing here: you do not need to produce a perfect draft the first time around. You will not produce that perfect draft. Accept this. Embrace this. Embrace it and your cat at the same time to really ingrain it as a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Liberate yourself from the pressure of needing to produce the perfect, most right draft and you may find starting the piece overall to be a much easier, more pleasant experience.

And along with this beautiful, uplifting spiritual advice, I also bring a practical thought: when it comes to getting started, a lot of times, people feel like they need to set the stage, yadda yadda yadda. Ha. No. Fuck that.

That’s a surefire way to bore the shit out of yourself. Start right in the middle of a scene that captivates you if that’s what you want to write. It’s a free platform. No one’s gonna arrest you if you stick Spiderman upside down in trash first thing. They might even applaud you actually, because you didn’t make them slog through some of that ‘It was the evening of the 25th and it was cold out in the streets” bullshit we all learned from Dickens.

Alright. Now let’s talk about actually getting started making words appear on paper.

So, from my knowledge there are generally two ways that folks write creatively. You have what I’m going to call the planners and then you what I’m going to call the monsters (I call them this entirely affectionately, I’m sure there’s a better word for these folks, but I don’t have it atm, all I have is a headcold). Planners are folks who sit down and work out their major plot points, who write outlines, and who create the scaffolding of their work before they set out on their magical journey. I think of these folks as architects.

And then you have the monsters and these are those fuckers who just sit down and write stream of consciously like the heathens all our high school teachers tried to teach us not to be.

I am both a planner and a monster. And a lot of that depends on the length of work I’m going for. I have never in my life planned a one-shot, for example. I just attack that as it is. I follow my heart, if you will. But when it comes to longer chaptered fics, I really do think that some outlining is super helpful.

You might find it useful for one-shots, though, I dunno. Maybe give it a try and see what happens?

The two main fics I’ve done proper outlines for are Inimitable and under fire and I actually find outlining to be immensely helpful in psyching me up to write the story (I go through and re-read my outlines when I start to lose interest or diverge too much from the plot outlined there in the actual writing. 9 times out of 10, re-reading gets me stupid excited to write all over again) and it also helps me keep momentum going throughout the plot.

Here’s a pic of some pages of under fire’s outline.

Physically writing the work is really important for me because it forces me to only put down key points/feelings/ideas I want to include, whereas typing gives me far too much room to get lost/distracted by extraneous detail. And since my handwriting is a teacher’s worst nightmare and I cross out shit and write huge with emotion, I’ll give you a little bit of what the middle page here says:

Miles-

there’s something thrumming

vibrating in his ears wherever he goes

-closes his eyes and somehow enters blackness- emptyness (Stranger Things style)

beat

“help.”

–BACK - everything is gone

closing his eyes doesn’t bring the space back

–it makes him panic. He doesn’t know why. His heart is pounding. He’s sweating He has a horrible feeling of doom.

beat

its gone.

he goes home anxiously. Pretends everything is normal.

his neck crawls

So basically it’s less of a formal outline and more of a collection of stream of consciousness feelings and screenplay directions which I’ll flesh out in the actual story.

Personally, I love writing these kinds of things because they get me pumped for the story I’m about to tell. I get to write out the key scenes and work through all the hard parts first, and then, while I’m writing, I work through the little fun details and banter and I have to write to figure out how we get from one scene to the next and I love the challenge of having to fit those pieces together. I very rarely stick strictly to my outline, (as anyone who is currently reading under fire can tell you right now), but I do try to stick to the main plot points in it and my writing is certainly better for it.

So yes. Outlining is very good, but it is even better when you do it to some kind of music. I listened to What’s Up Danger from the Into the Spiderverse soundtrack on repeat while I wrote this outline to kind of transfer some of the relentless pace conveyed in that song to the piece’s plot.

I highly recommend using music to set the mood of your piece while/before you write a piece of any length. It helps get you in the right headspace (excited or somber or angry) to write. You need emotion to write creatively. You can’t just make that happen sometimes; you need a little help.

A couple other things which might help:

1. Leave your house or the space you’re normally in. Go to a cafe and find a nice corner and have a think and a try in there. Sometimes moving to a different space helps you escape cyclical thinking patterns.

2. Write what you want to read. Don’t bother writing for other peoples’ interests; that’ll just bore the shit out of you all over again.

3. Find an atmospheric mood sound to listen to on Youtube or smth (I personally like Rain on a Car Windshield for slightly somber fics, but you might be into ocean storms or dripping caves or whatever).

4. Heat your feet. I don’t know why but I am entirely unproductive when my feet are cold. Maybe this one is me-specific, but whatevs. Heat the feets!

5. If you’re still having trouble just sitting down and pounding the story out, that’s okay! Maybe it’s not ready to be written yet. Maybe you’re not in the right headspace yet. Sometimes that’s just how it is. One story makes its way out in like, a hour, and the next one takes like, months to finally be written. We all work at different paces. We all write for different reasons.

It might help to figure out why you want to write a story before you write it. Like, if its for attention, it’s gonna be hard as hell. But if there’s an idea that you feel like is important or if there’s a mood you’re trying to work yourself into or out of, then that might be a little easier. For example, I wrote a piece called make it work which is about Fogs finding his motivation to be a lawyer and fight for justice when Kavanaugh was confirmed and I felt super helpless in the face of our present justice system. That story kind of wrote itself and it needed to be written, I feel, not just for me, but for others who were feeling just as helpless.

Writing is catharsis in that way. Maybe you just need to find out what you need to wring out of your soul.

Sorry that got very metaphysical. But I do want to stress that getting started and ending a story are the hardest parts of writing them, so you are definitely not alone if you feel like you’re ramming your head into a wall here.

I hope something here helps you, my dear!

#fic #writing advice #fanfiction #managingmischiefsince1988

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summerdownbeach · 6 years ago

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Gonna edit for grammar and spelling later...

Getting a little irked here by the people defending Voltron S8, because they assume everyone's issues are purely related to shipping. I never really cared who ended up with who at all, (only that everyone should want to date Hunk because he's perfect boyfriend material). Guys, the writing was just bad. It was a poorly written season, a poorly written finale, and honestly, it gave a piss ass message about giving up and letting a friend destroy themselves for the greater good. Not gonna go into to much detail here but these are just a few of my complaints:

1. Pacing and Story telling. The pacing of this season was bizarre. They started off with essentially a filler episode to quickly throw in Allurance as cannon (with some hella stiff dialogue but we'll get to that later) and then had like... a few episodes to justify bringing back old characters so we could get a last glimpse. Then 2 filler episodes in a row, then a straight run to the finish with a thrown together plotline. Literally nothing in this show prefaced Haggar as the big bad. 90 percent of the time she didn't seem to even want Lot or around, much less want anything to do with Altea or her own affiliations. The Alteans who followed her never felt like fully thought out characters either. They ended the last season with the red haired Altean pilot giving way to tons of theories about her past and who she could be, but she was literally just a drone set to die 5 minutes after introduction. That's bad forshadowing.

2. Important off screen plot points. Why on earth would they do this? Why would pink general just suddenly switch to the coillition? Why did they make us think she died in the explosion and then backtrack two minutes later? Why did they end the show with Shiro and Adam's big gay kiss (yes, it's Adam, listen to the audio description, they literally day it's Adam) without ever establishing Adam's return? They could've easily spent a scene where team Voltron returns to earth to grieve and find that in this new timeline (because yes, it's a new timeline despite what the characters think, if destroyed planets are suddenly back) Adam didn't die and is waiting for Shiro. They could've given them a real moment, developed their (nonexistent on screen) relationship and at least made their big moment at the end less sudden and so clearly damage control from burying their gay last season.

3. Relationship dialogue. I don't want to harp on Allur*nce as a ship itself here. It's not my thing, but I'm positive fan fiction writers and fanartists have made some pretty awesome stuff that's well made and fun to read and look at. I'm strictly looking at the shows portrayal of it. My number 1 complaint? The bizarrely platonic dialougue whenever the two talk. I'll give Lance this, he seemed at least interested in their romance this season, but whenever she and Lance talked, it was all just so formal - and half of what she said was exposition. Even during their date, and Alluras big reveal about feeling alone on earth felt so strangely platonic, and I truly believe that is the gault of the writers. They should've planted moments of growth between these two seasons ago! Not simply kept going with this tired and unrealistic "boy wears girl down until she says yes" trope. Even if they w erent certain they were going to go ahead with Allura and Lance, they could've built in friendship bolstering moments. Then, this date could've been so much less clunky. And to have Lance tell Allura he loves her on the first date? Even if it wasn't unrealistic, it also takes out any of the impact that the phrase carries later. By the time of her sacrifice Lance has said it onscreen so much that "I love you" has little to no weight. No wonder it was so easy for Allura to yeet herself into the void - she never exactly returned his sentiments - being too busy with exposition dialogue to make any strides in their (budding) relationship. Again, I have no problem with Allur*nce, only the lazy and ineffective way it was portrayed in the last few seasons.

4. Allura's sacrifice. I'm not even going to get into the political implications of making the Black woman bear the burden of the universe on her shoulders to the point where she literally has to sacrifice her body and soul to save the cosmos. I'm talking the actual execution of how they went about it. There's this concept in fiction writing where your most dramatic scene, your climax, should use an economy of words and time to be the most effective. That's why it hurts so much in movies like Wonder Woman, and even Titanic, when lead characters die. There usually is no time for goodbye, or if there is, it's brief and visual. Instead, the writers chose to give Allura an absurdly long time to say goodbye to everyone, and what's crazy is, no one but Lance objected? Like at all? They just accepted right away that there was no other way. I never took them as a fatalist bunch but hey, why stick to human characteristics now. Clearly the only person who should object to you self sacrificing is your significant other. This is why so much sacrifice in narrative is done in a way that refuses to give loved ones time to react because any sane person would at least try to stop them initially, and grasp at straws for another solution. I hated how the team just shrugged their shoulders and let Allura kill herself for the greater good. Their silence wasn't tragic, it was lazy.

5. Their lions just... left? The universe is done needing defense? Just like that? How did everyone get home from their princess death picnic? Do they make uberpools for space travel? Did they all agree not to be paladins anymore before this? What about Hunks dream of handing off the reins of Yellow to the next generation of paladins? Why did they write it this way? Who did this? Who do I blame?

I think what frustrates me the most is that the comedic episodes were still good. I truly think filler has always been the strongest asset voltron had. The dynamics were always much stronger in the funny episodes, and it seems like they wasted a lot of potential this season with rushed plot points and filling plotholes off screen.

I have more issues with this season, and I'll post them when I feel like adding to this list, but to say that people didn't like S8 because their ship didn't happen is obnoxious, especially when a season full of plot holes and rushed explanations is what we were left with. And on the subject of dissappointment, i didnt go over it here, but people being upset at the queer baiting are so valid. Even if you weren't into Kl*nce, the producers pretty much tried to sell the show on it. To use lgbt content, especially content that was never going to be cannon, as a marketing tactic is despicable. While strides were made by the show, airing the first animation of men kissing on screen in an show aimed at kids, the victory leaves a bad taste when the couple in question was never justified in the narrative beforehand, and was used as a ploy to fulfill the promise of lgbt rep, without actually using any of the budding relationships developing in the show (not limited to Kl*nce by any means. They could've done Sh*ith, H*ith, H*nce, ect).

If this season felt complete and left you with a feeling of contentment, good for you, I too enjoy a guilty pleasure as much as the next person. That said, this was a badly written season on all fronts. I think they did Allura and Allur*nce dirty with the resolution. They missed opportunities for character development in favor of more repetitive space battles. Don't try to invalidate people's contempt at this season by defending the creators for making the show in the first place, when they didn't live up to the standards of narrative fiction to get a passing grade in a creative writing class.

And because I want to end on something nice, I thought that the meeting of the old paladins and the new paladins was very cool, and it was really interesting to see Zarkon interact with the paladins in a new way. So... at least there's that?

#spoilers #spoiler #voltron spoilers #voltron season 8 #vld #vld s8 #vld spoilers #vld season 8 #vld shiro #vld keith #vld lance #vldallura #vldpidge #vldhunk #voltron #voltron legendary defender #voltron legendary disappointment #voltron legendary disaster #voltron legendary discourse

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the-lost-zen · 6 years ago

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Alright, I’m itching to do a rwby rp and I wanted to show off what I have for my OC briefly, any details I can mention in DM’s or something, I did leave one thing out I think but it’s not that important. Anyway, onto my oc.

First picture: That’s what I imagine my character, Chris Corcra (purple in Gaelic btw), would look like, the eyes would be a bright light blue and he’s a wolf Faunus (I know it’s over used but I was young when I made this and I’m sticking to it whole heartedly) so of course he would have the ears but he also has the big ol’ fluffy tail as it’s been described in the past.

Second picture: That’s Specture. Specture is Chris’s semblance, he’s a much more violent, irrational side of Chris that is constantly clawing it’s way out. Specture is its own living being but it’s a symbiote like Venom where I really got the inspiration for this. Specture can talk to Chris but of course it’s like having someone else in your head (similar to the newest Venom movie which I actually didn’t steal this from the movie, I was using that for a while now). I will go into further detail in DM’s just message me.

Third, forth, fifth, and six: Those are his weapons in their various forms. I say “weapons” because he has two of each up to the last sword which is a combination of the two smaller swords to create it. The pistols are made to look like a Vector .45 (the pistol is in .45 but the vector itself will be .308) because that’s exactly what they turn into (for lack of better words, I apologize). The vectors change into the duel swords and the swords to the main one. Again more detail can and will be provided in DM if requested.

The seventh picture: That’s Chris’ symbol (like Ruby has her rose on her clothing because that’s her “symbol” as I like to say). It’s worn on his vest over his heart and the back of his suit jacket when he decides to wear it. He does have more non-formal clothing which I will describe where the symbol is on the left sleeve of the jacket.

Well thanks to anyone who actually read ALL of that. None of the pictures are mine, I will give credit where it’s due I don’t want to steal anyone’s artwork, as an artist myself except with music I can imagine that’s annoying. So enough about that. If you have questions/want to rp (I allow groups and different genders or whatever to be involved because I’m open minded but if this were something that I felt was more one-on-one I’d be a bit stricter but I love being in groups of a wide verity of people (as wide as a four person team can get) because that’s what I think added to the beauty of RWBY’s story, anyway, if you’re more interested in a one-on-one since Tumblr doesn’t have group chats then tell me and everything will be worked out and we can rp. If you have a group or want to make one then tell me what app(s) would work and I’ll see what I can do. Now I won’t be available 24/7 so please be patient, I do get busy and as long as you’re understanding then we’ll get along great. I hope that I haven’t wasted anyone’s time because I’m genuinely excited to get RPing again especially RWBY. Anyway I hope y’all have a good day/evening/night and I hope to see some messages.

#rwby #rwby rp #rwby oc #roleplay #oc rp #oc #rp #literate rp #script rp #semi lit rp #semi literate rp #i dont own the artwork

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idolizerp · 6 years ago

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LOADING INFORMATION ON MAYDAY’S MAIN VOCAL, LEAD DANCE MOON YOONYOUNG...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: Youmi CURRENT AGE: 23 DEBUT AGE: 22 TRAINEE SINCE AGE:15 COMPANY: MSG SECONDARY SKILL: N/A

IDOL PROFILE

NICKNAME(S): honey, youdoll (a combination of a her stage name and doll, on account of her delicate features) INSPIRATION: she fell in love with music after first listening to the albums of korean artists from the late 70s to mid 80s. SPECIAL TALENTS:

creating acrostic poems on the spot

holding out notes for extended periods of time

imitating cartoon characters

NOTABLE FACTS:

as a child, she suffered from a mild case of arrhythmia (slow beating of the heart).

she is the middle child in her family with an older sister and a younger brother.

she once mentioned in a vlive that her favorite artist is claude monet.

IDOL GOALS

SHORT-TERM GOALS:

after waiting so long to enter the spotlight, yoonyoung plans on putting all her efforts into making mayday a group to remember—even if it means playing into a character for the sake of maintaining a well-liked image. already, it seems like the company is pushing her into modeling, a ploy to attract more visually-inclined fans. building a large social media following is also in the works, her public instagram essentially turning into a fashion blog. outside of mayday (and the plans the company has for her), yoonyoung wants to improve her skills not just as performer but as a creator as well and put that composition degree to good use. she hopes that in the coming months, management will allow her to let more of her creativity show through in whatever way that may be.

LONG-TERM GOALS:

ultimately, yoonyoung wants to be able to put out her own music. that’s what it’s always been about, after all; sharing her voice, her unique sound with the world. her goal is to delve into self-production work slowly but surely. the first step, of course, is to have more creative input in mayday’s discography. after that, she’d like to do lyric work for other artists, and eventually release original songs. she wants to establish herself as a distinct voice in the korean entertainment industry, setting herself apart by giving the people something they won’t be able to find anywhere else.

IDOL IMAGE

be kind. be gentle. be loving.

“do that,” her manager tells her the night before their debut showcase, “and you’ll be the nation’s sweetheart in no time.”

she wants to tell him that’s what he said when she first became a trainee so long ago, that it’s been seven years already without a single claim to fame. and that’s not what this is about, no. it’s never been about the recognition, but the point remains.

she’s a nobody.

they decide to play into the innocence of youth. doll-like. someone to be cared for, bringing out the need to protect in others. in the weeks that follow their debut, she clings to her members for dear life, hiding her face in their necks, pink blush high on her cheeks. a soft-spoken gem, youmi is the girl who can do no wrong. she becomes mayday’s resident baby, doted on and coddled like something precious.

she’s shy, or so it seems, preferring to let the others take the mic while she stands back and nods her head in support.

her nature is also elegant. a subtle sort of sophistication made soft by fanciful berets and dresses with hanging white lace, speech formal and polite.

but the truth?

the truth is she can hardly hold her tongue when she’s in public, has to physically bite down on her bottom lip until it threatens to burst to keep her words at bay. the truth is she’d go all day in wearing pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt if she could, can’t stand how pale her face is made to look beneath the bright stage lights (longs for the touch of sun on that comes with memories of home), is constantly seconds away from bursting at the seams with all the thoughts and feelings and conflicting emotions she has bottled up inside her rapidly beating heart.

the truth is she’s swears and drinks and tells jokes that often go over people’s heads. she’s rough around the edges, sarcastic when the situation calls for it, and can’t stand backing down from a challenge. she thinks the world, as it is, could learn a thing or two from her, from women in general.

but people don’t want a country bumpkin who’s not afraid to get down and dirty. they want a pretty and silent thing, something to show off.

so she will be kind, gentle, loving for now if it means a future that is set in stone and a chance to grab at something more.

IDOL HISTORY

moon 文.

dalseong-gun, daegu. a place of sun and wind and everything nice.

she grows up surrounded by family, always. whether it’s watching her grandmother work magic in the kitchen or chasing her cousins through strawberry fields that stretch as far as the eye can see, she is never without warmth at her side. early on, she learns that love comes in many forms: her mother’s big bear hugs, yoonoh’s quiet reassurances, yoona’s careful guidance. all these things and more, such beautiful professions of adoration and love.

this is the life she lives. and there is so much good within it.

the dream doesn’t come until a little later. it begins as a sapling. she’s seven the first time she listens to one of her father’s old records. yoonyoung watches with wide eyes as he slides the disk out of its vinyl album cover with careful hands, setting it down on the record player. the room fills with crooning voices on top of lilting melodies, painting the most vivid scenes behind her closed eyes. a musical seed is planted that day, one of shimmering infatuation. it grows a with every waking moment.

musicophile. that’s the word her father uses to describe her, lover of sound. her great aunt prefers the term gifted. and when yoonyoung sings at dinners, hosts her very own concert right out on the front porch steps, her aunt says she’s got that god-given gift, a natural-born talent. the kind that takes you places. takes you far, far away from small towns like theirs.

in the coming years, yoonyoung dives headfirst into the world of music. her town is small enough that everyone quickly learns of the littlest moon daughter’s quest to become the greatest musician of her generation. the community pitches in to provide her with the skills needed to carry out such a huge feat. she’s taught how to place her fingers on guitar strings every sunday from mr. jung down the road and wakes up long before the sun to meet ms. jinhee, the kindergarten teacher, for weekly vocal lessons.

it isn’t long before the chance to prove herself presents itself in the form a nationwide audition from one of korea’s most renowned idol companies, midas media. her father drives the whole family out to the city in support of their future star. she walks into her audition with all the blind optimism a fourteen-year-old can muster, radiating confidence like no one’s business.

but all the confidence in the world can’t make up for the talent she so obviously lacks. when weeks go by without a response, yoonyoung is smart enough to know what that means.

six months later, there’s another opportunity to be had: 99 entertainment’s annual talent search. it’s a sign, she thinks, when the news reaches her ear during a trip to the farmer’s market. this time, only yoona goes with her.

the result is the same as last time.

still, she doesn’t cry. good things come to those who wait, or so her uncle always told her. if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

for the first time, her mother begins to show fear. fear for her daughter who dares to dream in a world as cruel and unfair as this one. in the late afternoons, the woman stands in her bedroom doorway watching as yoonyoung struggles through chord progressions, practices switching keys and shaping her mouth to allow for stronger high notes, better sound, and her heart aches in the way only a mother’s can.

“just let me try one more time,” she insists. “please.”

her mother never could tell her no.

yoon 倫.

shortly after receiving her letter in the mail. saying goodbye is the hardest part, and it claws at her heart so fiercely, she’s not sure the wounds will ever fully heal. family and friends gather at their house for her official send-off, bearing gifts and unbidden love and wishes of good fortune.

fifteen years old, and seoul is a city of endless wonder.

yoonyoung moves into msg entertainment’s trainee dorms with little more than the essentials—toothbrush, her guitar, yoonoh’s favorite stuffed bunny. it’s an adjustment, for sure, but it helps that she’s used to sharing space with others. if she stretches her imagination, it’s not too different from sleepovers with her cousins, all twelve of them huddled together on the living room floor. she tries to make friends with the other girls, get to know them and their stories. some entertain choose to her, but most prefer to keep to themselves. it’s hard not to stick out with her sun-kissed skin and heavily accented words, but she embraces her daegu roots.

a year passes in which she learns how to move her body in ways that don’t cause secondhand embarrassment. she’s not a dancer by any means, but she has to at least dance if she’s ever going to have a shot at debuting.

then a year turns into two with no clear vision for yoonyoung. they allow her to go to school for music composition in the meantime. she’s not stupid, knows it’s a means of distracting her from management obvious lack of direction, but she divides her time between classes and training as best she can anyway.

soon.

the word flits around in her head like a restless bird, wings forming hurricanes in her soul. there’s never a date attached to the end of it, simply the promise of an unforeseeable light at the end of a never-ending tunnel. every push for more information is met with ambiguity. she’s told to wait a little longer.

soon.

wasn’t it not too long ago that she was telling herself the same thing?

between cramming for exams, she works on bettering herself as a musician. picks up the piano and spends evenings studying black and white keys, trying to make sense of the notes in front of her. builds a portfolio of music, handwritten eighth and quarter and sixteenth notes scribbled on blank pages in between plucking guitar strings. writing lyrics, lyrics. so many lyrics. pouring her heart into every character, every syllable, aching for home. the isolation isn’t intentional. it just happens. it doesn’t matter. she’s stretching herself thin, but that doesn’t matter either because at least she’s being productive.

even if she’s been stuck in the same place for the past six years. even if her hope has waned over time, certain idealisms traded for crushing realism.

soon.

then one day, it comes. she can see it approaching, the light at the end of the tunnel. yoonyoung told that she’s been placed into a group slated to debut sometime next summer. it’s really, truly happening. two other girls have already been added to the lineup as well. yoonyoung has to pinch herself in the arm to make sure she’s not dreaming.

that night, tears stream down her face in rivulets, soaking her pillow. she laughs and laughs until she’s pink in the face, rolls around on her mattress and squeals into the sheets.

and to think, she’d almost forgotten what happiness feels like.

young 永.

it’s the birth of an era.

mayday debuts as msg’s attempt at a brand new, fresh-faced, girl group to complement their sister group’s trendy vibes. she’s thrown into the role of the regal doll, acting younger than she is all the while maintaining an air similar to that of a princess in the hopes stealing the hearts of many. they’re performing on music shows, making variety appearances, having photoshoots with established brands.

for a rookie group, they’re doing fairly well. it’s not the image or sound she’d hoped for, but it’s something. and that’s more than she thought she was ever going to get.

a week after their first comeback, a letter comes in from her mother. written on her favorite blue stationary in purple ink, her mother’s pen strokes burst pride and joy. at the bottom, the signatures of all the people she holds closest to her heart. yoonyoung rereads it three times before hugging it to her chest.

here she is.

a star in the making.

#id.bio #id.msg #id.mayday #id.kim sojung

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